The Education Committee is pleased to announce the 2019 scholarship and grant award winners. This year we were able to distribute a total of five awards, including a MAGIP Higher Education Scholarship to Jesse Bunker, a MAGIP/RedCastle Resources Higher Education Scholarship to Ryan Rock, and a K-12 Education Grant to Morgan Anderson. In addition, we also issued a combination Higher Education Scholarship and K-12 Education Grant to two recipients to Holly Nesbitt and Anna Crockett.

Jesse Bunker, of Montana Tech in Butte, is doing pioneering work with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and sensor technology. In his research he is developing methods for detecting and measuring groundwater discharge in the Yellowstone River in southwestern Montana.

Ryan Rock is doing innovative remote sensing-based forest inventory and modeling work in collaboration with the Montana Department of Natural Resources, primarily focused on the Stillwater State Forest.

While Morgan Anderson is continuing her geography research into the dynamics of land development patterns in the west, she is also going to work with the Education Committee to organize and catalog past K-12 projects and help make them readily accessible to for use by current and future educators.

Holly Nesbitt and Anna Crockett are both working on highly relevant water quantity and also water distribution models. Each of their projects have unique qualities, but together they represent a body of work that will advance the state of traditional water management but also has the capacity to help people understand and the challenges of moving around and sharing water resources. We have awarded them each Higher Education Scholarships, and have asked them to frame their work in a manner that can be applied in a K-12 setting. After all, water management is as much a social practice as a scientific one. Bringing this kind of thinking to classrooms will help students adapt STEM principles and potentially help future leaders understand the social and environmental implications of sound water management. Their work will take place in the Upper Clark Fork Watershed, and will engage with local schools and perhaps Montana Tech in Butte.

For additional information about the MAGIP Higher Education GIS Scholarships and K-12 Education Grants contact the MAGIP Education Committee Chair, Rob Ahl