Why Continuity Matters: Reflections on the 15th continuous year of the Sustainable Land and Water Resources Research Experience for Undergraduates

The  Sustainable Land and Water Resources Research Experience for Undergraduates (SLAWR REU) is a research program that weaves together Indigenous and Western knowledge to advance scientific understanding and support management decisions made by tribal governments. 

“I didn’t have time to finish building relationships, because that takes years. But what the program taught me was that putting in those years is fundamental to good research.”

That’s how undergrad Bianka Rodriguez, a participant in the 2025 Research Experience for Undergraduates on Sustainable Land and Water Resources (SLAWR-REU) who worked on a Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center project, described her summer.

Her words reflect the program’s ethos, which focuses students on the relationship-building skills necessary to do community-based environmental research —science that widens its lens to include community values and input, even while addressing narrower topics like the benefits of cleaning water with Manganese oxide. 

So how can a program be both deeply relational and only ten weeks long? The answer lies not just in “cohort bonding,” as one student put it, but in the program’s design.

Each summer a new group of students gather from all over the US to take on new projects. But SLAWR REU itself has been running continuously since 2010, with locations in Montana and two in Minnesota. Students in 2025 enter a framework shaped by over a decade of trust-building between researchers and the people living in and dependent upon the land where students are invited to do research.

“This work doesn’t happen in a summer,” says program co-lead Melissa Kenney. “Over the years we’ve created partnerships that can withstand change. When new people join, they’re joining a community.”

For many students—especially first-generation college students—this continuity provides credibility. Students must be discerning about where to invest their time to best meet their goals, which sometimes involves returning to serve the communities they grew up in. They arrive with a great deal of idealism, and also skepticism about the program’s promise. SLAWR REU endeavors to make space for both, inviting students to bring their values and questions to the work.

For SLAWR REU, process is as important as product. The guiding question becomes: what kinds of solutions emerge when we truly take the time to understand all sides of the problem?

Take University of Wisconsin Stephenson student Alice Maas, who researched the ecological benefits of prescribed burning in Montana’s grasslands. To ground her research, she first explored the history of U.S. fire suppression and the cultural burnings it outlawed. Learning about ecology through fire practices among Salish and Kootenai tribes, she realized, “Biophysical data is only a small piece of the puzzle.”

For Rodriguez, too, the REU offered a path toward a more relational science. Originally from Mexico, she grew up in a family profoundly connected to plants and animals. Studying botany in college, she was dismayed that most professors “saw themselves as totally separate from the subjects they studied.” She wanted to know the plants themselves. Rodriguez questioned whether she should pursue a career in research.

Meeting botanist Lonyx Landry (Nor Rel Muk Wintu) at Cal Poly Humboldt and other Indigenous scientists changed that. “They thought like me,” Rodriguez recalls. “I felt at home.” At Landry’s encouragement, she applied to SLAWR REU where she continued to cultivate what she calls “a kind of thinking that is always considerate, never harmful.”

Next year, SLAWR REU will move into its 16th year. Founding member Diana Dalbotton reflects on the journey: “Those first years were chaotic. Now we’ve got things running so much more smoothly. What’s crucial about continuous funding is we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every grant cycle.” Like a long-term ecological research station, SLAWR REU has been allowed to grow and change, while sustaining the program’s core intention of attracting and mentoring the next generations of engaged scientists. 

“The thing I love most,” Dalbotton says, “is seeing how students recommend the program to their friends the next year. Then, when they become professionals and start their own research programs, they come back as collaborators.”

The REU SLAWR is now co-led by Melissa Kenney (U of MN Institute on the Environment) and Antony Berthelote (Salish Kootenai College), joined by numerous partners and mentors from the Fond Du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, the U of MN Geospatial Polar Institute, and others. Antony Bertholeote worked with Diana Dalbotten (U of MN St. Anthony Falls Lab) to create this REU model 15 years ago, which they then led together for over a decade. 

The 2025 SLAWR REU leadership team.

For co-lead Antony Berthelote (Salish Kootenai College), maintaining academic rigor while staying grounded in community values has been key to SLAWR REU’s design. From the start, he insisted that student research mirror professional standards and engage in more than just data collection. "Students participate from design to analysis. It's not just counting fish all summer!"

Over time, these efforts evolved from lengthy papers into dynamic story maps, preserving scientific depth while making findings more accessible to the communities they serve. “We want students asking community members about their needs and designing research to meet them,” Berthelote says. “It’s about maintaining rigor without sacrificing community input and engagement.”

Having transitioned into an advisory role, Diana Dalbotten will retire this year. The Research Experience for Undergraduates on Sustainable Land and Water Resources is currently funded by the National Science Foundation under grant number NSF EAR 1757451.

Students on an orientation trip for the 2025 SLAWR REU

Thanks to the National Science Foundation (NSF# 2349268, NSF# 2349269), MSP LTER (DEB 2045382), Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (G-2025-25150), and Supporting Tribal Education Pathways (EDA ED24HDQ0G0449) for their support. We also thank the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment and the Salish Kootenai College’s Extension unit (NIFA 2022-47003-38385).