Program blends Native culture with science

A new program, funded by a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, teams NAU with the University of Kansas and the University of Alaska to develop an online science curriculum especially for Native Americans.

The program incorporates traditional beliefs with science and features leading Native American scholars with traditional cultures and Western academics to teach it. Classes will emphasize ecology and environmental studies and will include traditional ethnobotany, indigenous environmental justice, native ecology and more.

"This partnership will help put NAU on the right track for providing distance learning for much-needed populations," said Octaviana Trujillo, professor and chair for NAU's Applied Indigenous Studies program. "The goal is to increase the number of Native students who feel comfortable with science as a way of understanding how the world functions—and also knowing that their own traditions have a solid empirical basis."

Curriculum planners will develop five classes over the next two years.

"There are very few Native American professors actually teaching in science," Trujillo said. "By making these materials available through distance delivery, students are going to receive instruction and mentoring from Native scholars."

Ray Pierotti, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and Indigenous Nations Studies at the University of Kansas, created the program because "Native students feel that science is either alien to them or has denigrated their way of understanding the world."

The three universities were chosen based on their Native student population, programs and history of collaboration.