Collaborations
Current Collaborations
All Under One Roof
To better meet the needs of our community, spectrUM has joined forces with the Missoula Public Library, Families First Learning Lab, MCAT, and the UM Living Lab to come together under a single roof in a new four-story complex centered in the heart of our city. Learn more.

Transforming Spaces
Transforming Spaces is a project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to foster a more inclusive, culturally responsive Third Place for Missoula’s significant urban Indigenous population while better meeting the needs of all learners in our community.
EmPower Place at the Missoula Food Bank
EmPower Place is a vibrant community space where children and families can learn and play together. This collective impact space is a collaboration between spectrUM Discovery Area, Missoula Food Bank, and Missoula Public Library. Learn more.
GSK Science in the Summer
GSK-Science in the Summer powered by GSK and SciNation. Bringing science to students on the Flathead Reservation. Learn more.
Making Across Montana
Making Across Montana is a project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to develop, test, and share a replicable, sustainable approach for making and tinkering engagement in rural and tribal communities. Learn more.
Montana NSF EPSCoR
Montana NSF EPSCoR is a Montana University System program focused on stimulating sustainable improvements in Montana's R&D capacity and competitiveness in science and engineering research.
Our current RII Track-1 project (2018-2023) is the Consortium for Research on Environmental Water Systems (CREWS). Learn more.
SciNation on the Flathead Reservation
Explore programming happening on the Flathead Reservation. Read about spectrUM's partnership with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to create a mobile, cultural makerspace, the first of its kind in the nation. Learn more.
Summer of Science
The Jane S. Heman Foundation has teamed up with spectrUM and our Bitterroot STEAM Advisory Group to create a robust STEM learning ecosystem in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. Learn more.
Past Collaborations
BANR (Bioenergy Alliance Network of the Rockies) Education
The Bioenergy Alliance Network of the Rockies (BANR) is a USDA-funded project that brings together scientists, educators, and extension specialists. Learn more.
Big Sky Brain Project
A partnership between UM's Center for Structural and Functional Neuroscience (CSFN) and spectrUM Discovery Area. Funded from 2013-2017 by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Learn more.
Carbon TIME
Carbon: Transformations in Matter and Energy (Carbon TIME) is a program that includes publicly available teaching units, teacher professional development, and teacher networks based in local education agencies. Learn more.

Comp Hydro
Comp Hydro: Integrating Data Computation and Visualization to Build Model-Based Water Literacy funded by the NSF STEM+Computing (STEM+C) Partnership. Learn more.
Making Spaces
Through a collaboration with Maker Ed and with generous funding from Cognizant, spectrUM worked with a cohort of over 20 teachers at five different sites around the state between the spring of 2020 - fall of 2022 to embed maker education within their curriculum. Learn more.

Montana Groundwater Academy
spectrUM, along with multiple partners and with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency, developed a system of monitoring wells and provided field-based groundwater education to high school students in western Montana.