Building capacity with undergraduate students and faculty to teach and learn technical environmental data skills.

The ESIIL Stars Program, funded by NSF, is an annual program that builds environmental data science skills and trains the next generation of data-capable workers. Inspired by Earth Lab's Earth Data Science Corps, this 5-month internship program includes a combination of online data skills training for students and faculty, career-focused webinars, an open textbook that introduces novel analytics for environmental data, and project-based learning. Faculty training builds capacity to teach environmental data science at partner institutions.

Why?

While the demand for earth data science skills in the workforce is exploding, the availability of programs that teach these in demand skills is limited. Specifically, smaller schools often lack the capacity to teach technical skills due to limited resources, faculty expertise and challenges associated with adding new curriculum. This lack of capacity in turn yields fewer skilled workers  in the technology sector.

How?

Participants are trained through a paid internship that includes online workshops for students and faculty and project based learning where participants design their own research projects. Modeled after Earth Lab’s Earth Analytics Data Science Bootcamp course, students and faculty learn the core data science skills necessary for careers in earth data science, including Python programming, Git/GitHub for version control and collaboration, and CyVerse for working reproducibly in the cloud. Faculty are then able to teach these skills to the broader population of students at their schools.

Who?

This program is aimed at undergraduate students who are new to data science and interested in applying it to earth and environmental science. It is offered to participants at each partner school of ESIIL, providing experience to students with limited access to earth data science educational resources, laying a solid foundation for future earth data science work. Students are not expected to have any previous programming experience before beginning the Stars program and undergraduate students in all majors and class levels are eligible.

Interested?

Applications for the 2025 Program will begin in the spring. If you have further questions, please reach out to your faculty contact at your school listed below:

• Oglala Lakota College: Dana Gehring (danag@olc.edu)
• United Tribes Technical College: Jessica Logan (jlogan@uttc.edu)
• Metropolitan State University of Denver: Andong Ma (anma@msudenver.edu)
• San Carlos Apache College: Mark Clytus (mclytus@tocc.edu)
• Haskell Indian Nations University: Stephanie Willis (swillis@haskell.edu)

If you have questions about the ESIIL Stars program, please contact esiil@colorado.edu. 

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Timeline

The program includes a suite of activities to empower students to pursue earth data science jobs and build sustainable earth data science educational programs at partner institutions. 

• March - April: Faculty and students from each institution complete a series of asynchronous workshops hosted by ESIIL, aimed at teaching the foundations of earth data science.
• May 20th - 22nd: Faculty and students attend an in-person training session in Boulder, Colorado. Travel and lodging will be provided.
• June - July: Students and faculty apply the scientific programming skills they have learned to a hands-on project through an immersive internship experience.
• August 1st: Students present their final projects to the ESIIL community 

Throughout the program there are peer and professional career development webinars and workshops on topics such as scientific communication, working in environmental data science, and building a professional online presence. All project educational materials are shared on Earth Lab’s open education portal.

Students are awarded a $4,500 stipend for the program, and additional funding for travel and lodging for the in-person training in Boulder, Colorado.

Congratulations to the 2024 ESIIL Stars Interns!

We are excited to showcase three projects from our partnering institutions led by student interns. Click the links below to view their presentations: 

United Tribes Technical College 

• Marshall Smith, Abraham Weasel, Skylar Albers, Ebony Schultz, Tanner Veo, Kianna Stroh, Elisha Yellow Thunder, Jessica Logan, Emily Biggane

Metropolitan State University of Denver 

• Tesia Mancosky, Paw Moo, Rachel Sadler, Riley Sundberg, Rosie Patrick, Meghan Smedes, Sylvia Brady, David Parr

Oglala Lakota College 

• Summer Afraid of Hawk, Dara Eaglestaff, Angelina Wade, Summer Dupree, Eva Wedell, Elisha Yellow Thunder, Camille Griffith, Dana Gehring

Partners

This work represents a partnership between Oglala Lakota College (OLC), Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU), United Tribes Technical College (UTTC), San Carlos Apache College (SCAC), Haskell Indian Nations University (Haskell), and The Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab (ESIIL). ESIIL is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and is a part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), a partnership of the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). We are also affiliated with Earth Lab.