Tag Archives: TEK

Research Statement

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How is the Indigenous understanding of the environment different from western scientific understanding?

There are a few areas around environmental understanding and interconnectedness in which I would like to research further. I am passionate about the environment and see myself agreeing with a lot of traditional values that I have come across so far compared to dominant western science values. As a Grade 7 Science teacher in BC, I am obligated to teach TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) when addressing ecosystems and sustainability. How teachers address this as well as the depth that we go into it is not consistent from what I’ve seen. I want to better my teaching practice by incorporating more TEK examples and activities in the classroom as well as further my knowledge on the topic. Furthermore, I want to see how technology, if at all, can help disseminate information of Indigenous knowledge to people via the Internet or other digital technologies. Looking ahead, I see that we will be addressing environmentalism and the Indigenous relationship to understanding the natural world compared to the western scientific approaches in Module 4 of the course. I have already found some research papers discussing environmentalism and Indigenous knowledge and have attached to Module 1 posts. I will continue to do this in further modules.

Alicia

Module 1 – Environmental Science Education

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Post 2:

As I am interested in researching about Indigenous Science Education, I am still looking for websites/research papers about Science, Technology, Math, Robotics, and Environment/Ecology. The first link that I have posted below is a research paper written in 2002 about the environmental concerns of Indigenous people in Canada. I haven’t given it a full read, but it seems to give an overview of environmental concerns of today that impact Indigenous education. It also discusses differences between mainstream Science education compared to worldviews about science from the perspective of Indigenous people. I look forward to reading this paper in more depth.

http://new-library.lakeheadu.ca/index.php/cjee/article/viewFile/271/160

Post 3:

This next article looks into Indigenous knowledge about science and how it differs from non-Indigenous views of Science. There are links to other research done in this area.

http://www.dialogueseminars.net/resources/Panama/Reading/B.-IPBES-related/comments-Y.-Vizina-IPBES-work-programme.pdf

Post 4: 

Another article that is relevant to my interest in Indigenous science education is an article called “Discovering Indigenous Science: Implications for Science Education”. The authors are local and the focus of this paper is TEK – Traditional Ecological Knowledge. The authors make comparisons between Western or “conventional science” with Indigenous science and they take the reader through a sort of overview of science education and interest. I must say, I have not fully read this article yet, but I am excited to read it more thoroughly soon.

Here is the pdf: Indigenous Science Implications

Post 5:

This article was published in 2006 by Deborah McGregor, an Anishnabe woman and professor of geography and Aboriginal studies. Its main focus is on Traditional Ecological Knowledge from her perspective. She grew up in northern Ontario in a community that incorporated TEK but they did not place a name on it. She now teaches a course on Indigenous TEK at U of T and shares a lot of valuable information for readers to learn more about TEK.

Grade 7 Science in BC discusses TEK in many parts of the Ecosystem unit. Having taught this course for two years now, I value this part of the curriculum and I want to incorporate more Aboriginal perspectives in this course (and other courses that I will be teaching in the future).

http://www.silvafor.org/assets/silva/PDF/DebMcGregor.pdf

 

Alicia