Weaving Traditional Ecological Knowledge into Biological Education: A Call to Action

Weaving Indigenous and sustainability sciences to diversify our methods

“…Freire's (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed proposes a new relationship between teacher, student and society, in which the learner is treated as the co-creator of knowledge. Some of these ideas have been applied to Native American education by Indigenous scholars (Kimmerer 2002).…”

Neo-colonialism in Our Schools: Representations of Indigenous Perspectives in Ontario Science Curricula

“…Derived from long-term observational data and maintained through an oral tradition, IK systems build upon the experience of earlier generations and adapt to new technological and socioeconomic changes (Omura, 2005;Tsuji & Ho, 2002). The knowledges and experiences of Indigenous peoples provide insights on the relationships between living things in nature that are currently absent in WMS and that can be complemented with WMS and technology to provide a more holistic understanding of nature (Kimmerer, 2002).…”

“…Indigenous-related content was often associated with antiquity or primitive terms and was subordinated to or treated as peripheral in relation to Western knowledge (Ninnes, 2000). Kimmerer (2002) also pointed out that IK are unknowingly or knowingly ignored in curricula. Indeed, my previous study (Kim & Dionne, 2014) revealed that many Canadian jurisdictions showed either a lack of Indigenous-related content in their grades 7 and 8 science curricula (i.e., evidence of ignoring) and/or evidence of essentialism and appropriation of IK in their science curricula.…”

“…As seen in Table 3, 13% of the analyzed Aboriginal content was described as concepts students need to learn. IK have been recognized internationally as valuable knowledge systems to study how the environment has changed over time as well as to promote environmental stewardship (Aikenhead & Michell, 2011;Kimmerer, 2002;McKinley, 2005;Tsuji & Ho, 2002). Through the lens of the universalist view of science, the knowledges and practices of Aboriginal peoples are incommensurable to number-and formula-based science (i.e., factual science), such as the chemistry of physics (Siegel, 2001).…”

Rethinking Contemporary Sub-Saharan African School Knowledge: Restoring the Indigenous African Cultures

“…ACIKs would provide with culturally-appropriate settings for exploring and examining knowledges that were previously ignored in Eurocentric education curricular. For instance, in Eurocentric biology curricula, academics are perhaps unknowingly ignoring an entire body of knowledge that has potential significance to contemporary science and policy; traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) [26]. TEK has always been the bedrock of African IKs and everyday life experiences.…”