City: Rapid City, SD

Category: Education

Telephone: (605) 394-2400, (800) 544-8162

Address: 501 East St. Joseph St.

Description: Started as the Dakota School of Mines in 1885, Tech, as it’s called today, has been known for its science and engineering programs for the last half century or more.Four colleges—Materials Science and Engineering, Earth Systems, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Systems Engineering—provide courses of study toward 10 undergraduate degrees in engineering and 6 in science. There are master’s programs in 12 disciplines and 3 doctoral programs in science and engineering.The Institute of Atmospheric Sciences, established in 1959, is located on campus, and students are encouraged to take part in research there. The institute collaborates with the National Weather Service, which has a station nearby, through a student internship program and by helping develop models for more accurate weather prediction. A fiber-optic cable connected to weather service computers affords the institute instant access to data so scientists can watch storms as they develop; that information is then used in research and teaching.The institute also works with the EROS (Earth Resources Observation Systems) Data Center in Sioux Falls, the world’s largest storehouse of earth science information, to interpret and use data to delve into problems such as pollution, climate change, and weather phenomena. The institute has performed major weather-modification field research for several federal agencies and has developed studies for air quality and air pollution. Also, scientists there use the world’s only armor-plated, instrumented airplane capable of penetrating hailstorms in their studies of thunderstorm development. Currently, institute staffers are looking into the ways human activity affects Earth’s atmosphere, a science called biogeochemistry.The Museum of Geology on the Tech campus welcomes visitors who want to ogle dinosaur skeletons, meteorites, minerals, and other fascinating objects from the natural world. Read about the museum in the Attractions chapter.About 2,400 students attend Tech, 500 of them housed in campus dorms. Under the watchful eye of their mascot, Grubby the miner, the blue-and-yellow Hardrockers compete in football, basketball, volleyball, track and field, and cross-country. O’Harra Stadium, with its playing field and all-weather running track, is surrounded on three sides by terraces where some 300 cars can park while their occupants watch college and high school sports.