While Flathead Valley Community College already has a direct pipeline for its science students to Montana State University, a grant from the United States’ space program may have streamlined the process even more.

A $750,000 grant from NASA over the next three years will be split between Montana State and FVCC, with the lion’s share going to the university’s electrical engineering department.

Jim Boger, an associate professor of physics at FVCC, said the amount the Kalispell school will receive — somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000 — will go toward buying equipment to create an optics laboratory. 

“Most of the grant is going to Montana State, but we will be able to buy some parts to build a polarimeter,” Boger said. “We might be able to buy a lens, cameras and a laser mount with the money.”

A polarimeter is an optical device that measures the angle of rotation caused by passing polarized light through an “optically active” substance. 

One exists at Montana State, and will be used to monitor climate change. Boger’s students in Kalispell will build a large one themselves to gain an understanding of how the device works.

“In the case of the polarimeter at Bozeman, they will use it to look up at the sky and we’ll do aerosol and cloud phase retrieval,” he said. “We’ll use those to sort out atmospheric models for climate change.”

NASA gave the money to the two Montana schools as part of its Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research program.

“It’s to promote research throughout the states and get students involved,” Boger said.

The four or five students involved in building two polarimeters at FVCC will take the devices to schools across the state as a learning exercise and outreach effort. 

FVCC’s physics students and engineers already have an advantage at Montana State, he said, because they come in so well-prepared from the two years they spend working hands-on in Kalispell.

In part due to this grant, some FVCC engineering and physics students will be able to participate in the Microlithography Engineering Lab at Montana State as paid interns this summer.

From MSU, many are hired by Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a NASA off-shoot managed by CalTech, and the Goddard Institute for Space Science in New York. Because of this close connection, MSU filed a joint grant with FVCC, and both are likely to reap the rewards. 

Plans beyond a polarimeter are possible in the future for the optics lab if more funding can be acquired.