Additional scholarships will be made available to University of Wisconsin students for the next school year after the campus received a major grant from the National Science Foundation.

According to a statement from UW, the grant will allocate $60,000 over the next five years and will create nearly 35 scholarships for students participating in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs.

The grant will be utilized by the Nelson Foundation by individuals studying within the Community Environmental Scholars Program, the statement said.

CESP Student Coordinator Rob Beattie said the program will also provide undergraduate students with an avenue to combine their majors with a variety of other undertakings.

“The CESP program, which has been running for a year now, gives students an opportunity to get together with one another [to do] service work with community groups,” Beattie said.

The program has worked alongside various organizations that range from Central Hispano, located in Madison, to Urban Ecology, based in Milwaukee. Both programs work to educate children about the surrounding environment, according to Beattie. Each semester, the program attempts to participate in one community group activity.

Research has indicated individuals who major in science and struggle academically often respond well to applying their knowledge to a specific topic, Beattie said.

He added the program also provides guidance to students who are attempting to incorporate their interest in science and the environment with the real world.

“We’re helping students think about once you get out of school as an undergraduate what might you do with your science degree coupled with environmental studies,” Beattie said.

The scholarships will be presented to students who represent an underrepresented minority group, as well as first-generation, veteran, disabled or returning adult students, according to the statement.

Other requirements for the scholarships will include include having a GPA above 2.85 and being a U.S. resident or naturalized citizen, Beattie said. Individual scholarships will be given at an amount of approximately $7,000 and $8,000 a year.

Providing avenues for a diversity of students within the program was one of the main selling points for the foundation, Beattie said.

Cathy Middlecamp, a project leader with the program, said in an email to The Badger Herald that there were also a multitude of other reasons that compelled NSF to grant the scholarship to the university.

“One is that we already have a good track record with [CESP],” Middlecamp said. “Another is that we have a great group of people now working in CESP or willing to be involved in the future.”

The proposal to receive the grant was constructed over the course of the summer and was submitted in August 2012, Beattie said. It is the first time the Nelson Institute has acquired this specific grant for the NSF.

For students to receive the scholarships for the upcoming 2012-13 academic school year, applications must be in by today, the statement said.