As insects go, bees are pretty smart ... despite the fact that their short lives are spent chiefly in the pursuit of food, and though a worker bee's brain weighs only about a milligram. It's probably just as well. Otherwise, the fascinating creatures might start to notice all the attention they get from students at the Native American Summer Institute.

In fact, the institute's science and math curriculum revolves around the bee and includes the "biology, algebra, and economics of beekeeping," says Joseph Watkins, associate professor of mathematics at the University of Arizona and one of the organizers of the annual program. The institute, which meets every summer between Memorial Day and Independence Day, is a cooperative effort of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, the Wa:k O'odham Community, the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center and the UA.

Participants -- numbering 24 this year -- are Native American high-school students who intend to go to college. The institute familiarizes them with the UA campus, says Watkins, both as a "learning environment" and a "familiar, comfortable place." During the program, they study language, culture, mathematics, and biology in ways designed not only to boost their academic success in high school and college but to apply their learning to real problems and experiences.

For example, students get practice running an enterprise located on tribal lands and integrated with traditional culture. That enterprise -- a beekeeping business -- is a model that can be adapted for other types of businesses, Watkins says.

This microcosm of teaching, research, experience, and commerce draws from a population of more than 600 Native American high-school students in the Tucson area. It's a population with historically low rates of postsecondary education, especially in math, science and engineering.

On the right path
The Native American Summer Institute grew out of the efforts of Tucson high-school teachers Pete Guerrero and Patty Downey, who eight years ago began a summer program for 12 Native American students from the Navajo, Tohono O'odham, and Pascua Yaqui tribes. It was held in the mountainous Chiricahua National Monument southeast of Tucson, where the students cleared trails and studied the region's botany, geology and Native American history. Exceptionally, 10 of the 12 students went on to graduate from high school.

After 1994, the program grew and evolved through collaboration with the UA. The Department of English hosted a writing-camp component, and in 1997 Watkins and a colleague designed a pilot workshop based on mathematical models of honeybee population dynamics.

The 1998 institute included 22 students -- one Navajo and one Choctaw participant and the remainder from the Tohono O'odham and Pascua Yaqui tribes -- who produced, with filmmaker Stephanie Lucas, the half-hour documentary called "A Tale for All Nations." (It's now in the archives of the National Museum of the American Indian).

Hands-on learning
"The BeePop curriculum is the intellectual heart of the summer institute," says mathematics postdoctoral fellow Stan Yoshinobu, who teaches BKEcon (beekeeping economics) at the institute. (For information about the Teaching Post-docs program Yoshinobu is part of, see "Research Plus") After taking part in "BeePop: The Population Dynamics of Honeybees in the Hive and in the Wild," developed by Watkins, students develop business strategies and write a business plan for a beekeeping operation.

They also get their hands dirty, not to mention sticky, harvesting honey at the institute-operated Wa:k Apiary on land provided by the San Xavier Farming Cooperative south of Tucson. It is, Watkins points out, the only apiary on tribal land run by tribal people.

The honey -- labeled "Native Sweetness: Honey from Tucson's Desert" -- isn't currently for sale, "but there are plans to sell the native honey in the future," says Yoshinobu. "We had some jars made last year, and it is very good ... mesquite honey, which tastes different from the processed honey at the store."

"The goal of BKEcon," says Yoshinobu, "is to come up with a three-year business plan for a beekeeping business. The students must consider loans, costs, revenue, pricing, and other financial issues. This project is a way for the students to apply mathematics in a concrete setting... which can be difficult due to the open-ended nature of the problem."

This is Yoshinobu's second year with the Native American Summer Institute. His role includes helping with basic math instruction and coordinating the many field trips, which last year included visits to the Carl Hayden Bee Laboratory, Native Seeds/SEARCH in Patagonia, the Grace Flandrau Planetarium on the UA campus, the UA Tree Ring Laboratory, the intercollegiate athletics program at McKale Center, and the UA Native American Student Association headquarters.

Not only do institute alumni graduate from high school and go on to college in numbers higher than would otherwise be expected, but at least three institute alumni are now pursuing science and engineering post-secondary education. Tutors are Native American college students studying science at the college level; one is an institute alumna.

An institute alumnus has asked his tribe for money to start a beekeeping business, Yoshinobu relates. "So far beekeeping hasn't grown on native lands, but it is viable."

"I've never been part of a more rewarding experience," he adds. "The work we do at the Native American Summer Institute does positive things for people who need it perhaps the most. It's been a pleasure for me to work with the Indian nations near Tucson."