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Incorporation Of Traditional Knowledge Into Geoscience Education: An Effective Method Of Native American Instruction

By Wendy Smythe, Richard C. Hugo and Sean McAllister

Here we present a place-based culturally competent Geoscience Education Program (GEP) implemented in an Alaska Native (AN) community, in which we coupled Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. The GEP was built upon collaborations with the school district, tribal government, community, and a National Science and Technology Center engaging K-12 students about relevant environmental topics of interest to the tribal community, such as the health of local riverine and coastal ecosystems. Our pedagogical approach promoted learning rooted in local history, culture, and language while encouraging students to build STEM expertise. This paper describes a successful Geoscience Education Research project using bioassessment of coastal marine habitats with shipworms as an indicator organism to monitor the health of coastal resources. As an authentic research project, the study not only produced real-world data that substantially benefited the tribal community, but also a novel scientific finding – that shipworms may facilitate bioassessment of marine environments.

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Lessons Learned from a Geoscience Education Program in an Alaska Native Community

By Richard C. Hugo, Wendy F. Smythe, Sean McAllister, Benjamin Young, Bayta Maring and Antonio Baptista

laska Native communities depend on customary and traditional use of natural resources for physical, emotional and cultural sustenance, and community members are concerned about threats to local ecosystems posed by logging, mining, overharvesting, invasive species, fresh and marine water pollution, and climate change. To support one community’s efforts to address these concerns, we have developed an experiential geoscience education program for grades 5 – 12 that draws upon both western science and traditional knowledge. In this program we have found that students are best served by a pedagogy that is founded upon community partnerships, focuses on community needs, reinforces cultural traditions, and presents western science and traditional knowledge as equal and complementary bodies of knowledge. This program has contributed to an increased number of high school graduates pursuing college degrees and has been welcomed by the community as an integral component of cultural revitalization.

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