Students at the Siletz Valley School are creatively addressing community needs in a program that enriches STEM exploration with arts and Indigenous culture.
Recently, the school opened its doors to families and community members for their annual Family Math and Science Night, an evening dedicated to celebrating student learning, hands-on discovery, and community connection.
Central to the evening’s celebration was the school’s participation in SMILE (Science & Math Investigative Learning Experiences) Clubs, a statewide initiative run by Oregon State University in partnership with rural school districts, as well as Explore and More, a program unique to Siletz Valley School and Chemawa Indian School.
SMILE Clubs
SMILE Clubs are after-school, pre-college STEM programs designed to spark interest in science, technology, engineering, and math through hands-on experimentation and mentorship.
The event featured presentations from some of the school’s younger learners, focusing on the biology of whales or ocean mysteries, as well as in-depth projects from middle and high school students, highlighting the range of scientific inquiry and creativity happening across grade levels.
Community partners of the Siletz SMILE program, including the Oregon Coast Aquarium, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians Tribal Health Clinic, the Oregon Marine Reserve Program, and Cape Perpetua Collaborative, were also present to do hands-on, science based activities with attendees.
Teachers who lead SMILE Clubs commit to holding weekly meetings where students conduct science experiments, connect with working scientists, explore college pathways, and build a sense of academic community. As part of the SMILE program, teachers host a Family Math and Science Night each year to share student learning with their broader community.
According to its website, Siletz Valley School serves 238 students from kindergarten through 12th grade. It’s the only school in Siletz, a town in rural Lincoln County. As a charter school, it operates independently from the Lincoln County School District and is governed by a seven-member school board.
The school works closely with the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, whose tribal offices are located just a short distance away, and who provide financial support through the Siletz Tribal Charitable Contribution Fund. Many students at the school are Indigenous, and the curriculum reflects that strong cultural connection. High school students have the opportunity to take Dee-ni language classes, while Native American culture classes are offered at all grade levels. Elective drumming classes further support cultural education and engagement.
In the spirit of the school’s strong connection and partnership with CTSI, this year’s event showcased not only traditional science projects but also interdisciplinary work through another pre-college initiative run, but not funded), by Oregon State University, that’s unique to the Siletz Valley School and the Chemawa Indian School in Salem: the Explore and More Program.
Explore and More
Korey Cimock, the lead secondary sciences teacher at Siletz Valley School, AJ Molizzi, the Explore and More Program Coordinator, and Theresa Smith, the Tribal Language and Cultural Arts instructor at Siletz Valley School, started the program from the ground up about four years ago.“Explore and More is another Oregon State University pre-college program unique to our school,” explained Cimock. “Students are allowed to conduct individual research projects and get paid to do them. So this is a paid research program that is supported through the college and only here at Siletz and Chemawa.”
The Explore and More Program blends STEM with the arts and Indigenous culture. The program uses a three-part structure for developing projects with students. Students begin by examining community issues through field trips, conversations with professionals, and experiential learning opportunities (the “explore” phase).
From there, they design and create a unique product that addresses the challenges they have studied (the “create” phase). The process culminates in a public showcase, where students present their final projects to the community (the “showcase” phase).
At the Feb. 26 event, high school students from this year’s Explore and More program proudly displayed the results of that work. They put together posters, similar to what you may find at an academic research conference. Projects reflected a wide range of interests and approaches, demonstrating both academic growth and personal investment.
One Explore and More student, 11th-grader Isaiah Brandt, developed a unique project that blended his experiences in traditional sweat lodges with aspirations of designing luxury fragrances.
“I love the way that our longhouse smells,” said Brandt. “That cedarwood and stuff, it brings me back home. And so I thought one day after I got out of the sweat, I was like, man, this would be really cool to turn into some kind of fragrance that you could spray or apply to yourself in some kind of way.”
Isaiah and his Explore and More mentor, OSU student Kelsey Carlos-Keliʻikipi, developed three scents: a men’s cologne of tobacco and spruce, another men’s cologne of cedar and sandalwood, and a women’s perfume of sweetgrass, vanilla, and lavender.
Another student, Adrian Joubert, presented on his project on hydroponics as a way to address food insecurity in his community. He was partnered with another Siletz Valley School student, Sophia Galli, and his OSU mentor Larrisa Tyler.
“The Explore and More program was a lot of work, but it’s something that opened me up to more career opportunities,” said Joubert. “Especially my agriculture class, I took a dual-credit agriculture class, and that’s how we came up with the idea.”
Joubert said he probably would not have considered this as a potential career option if he had not participated in the Explore and More program.
“I didn’t really know much about agriculture, and when I thought about agriculture I just thought about farmers, which I didn’t really want to do that, but working more with the plants it’s a lot different, it’s a completely different thing than just farming,” he said.
Another student in the program, Juan Sanchez-Russell, focused his project on how to repurpose trash and plastic found, as well as the shells of European green crabs, an invasive species on Oregon’s beaches, into beautiful beads and jewelry. The testing phase of figuring out how to make beads out of the crabs took a little experimentation.
“First we were going to crush them up and let them dry out, but in the process of drying them out they lost their natural color,” Sanchez-Russell explained. “So we switched to just putting them in a bowl with resin and using a UV light to solidify them.”
This is Sanchez-Russell’s first year with the Explore and More program.
“I like it a lot, I’ve learned a lot.” He’s a junior, and planning to participate in Explore and More again next year.
The Future of Explore and More
Explore and More was previously supported through a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but that funding has been discontinued. As many organizations have experienced, federal and private grants have become increasingly competitive, making sustainable funding more challenging to secure.
The program is currently seeking financial support for the upcoming year, leaving its future uncertain.
