Intellectual Merit
The Indigenous Education Institute (IEI) and the U.C. Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory (UCB) are developing Cosmic Serpent, a NSF-funded professional development project to increase the capacity of museum practitioners to bridge native and western science learning in informal settings. Development of Cosmic Serpent stems from the fact that a cultural disconnect exists between western scientists and educators and the native community in terms of scientific worldviews. This cultural disconnect manifests itself in the lack of participation of Native Americans in scientific and technical fields—an issue of critical concern.
Cosmic Serpent will explore commonalities between western and native science, taking into account that native cultures have, over millennia, developed ways of knowing that are highly adapted, interconnected, and enduring. Each knowledge system informs the practice of science and its role in society in a fundamental way, and the commonalities can provide a framework for developing mutually inclusive learning experiences in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). The project recognizes previous work that integrates the two systems; however our approach of identifying and looking directly at the commonalities in the context of informal science education (ISE) is novel.
The project asks: How can ISE providers develop programs that enable all learners to cross cultural borders, in this instance, the culture of western science and the cultures of long-resident indigenous peoples? We believe that the cosmic serpent trans-cultural icon—a native symbol connected to fundamental concepts in earth, space, life, and environmental science—will help to bridge the two worldviews, provide museum practitioners with a tool to engage native audiences, and bring indigenous perspectives to all visitors. Components of Cosmic Serpent include: 1) professional development workshops and peer mentoring; 2) museum programs featuring native/western commonalities as entry points to STEM; 3) regional partnerships among museums and native communities; 4) multimedia resources; 5) a legacy document to inform the ISE field on ways to improve STEM programming for Native Americans; and 6) a culminating conference jointly hosted by the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC). The project is being guided and will be sustained by native and western scholars experienced in bridging native ways of knowing and western science.
Broader Impacts
Cosmic Serpent will serve 270 practitioners from 96 science centers/museums and tribal/cultural museums in the U.S. Southwest, West, and Northwest (eight states). Participants will gain awareness of
diverse cosmologies and epistemologies and thus an increased understanding of the nature and cultural
roots of science (western, native, or otherwise). Intended
outcomes are to: 1) increase participants’ understanding of native and western
science and awareness of the potentialities of the intersection of the two
knowledge systems; 2) develop museum community programs that reflect these
commonalities;
3) foster enduring and respectful partnerships between museums and native
communities; and 4) increase institutional capacity to engage native audiences
in science. Resulting museum programs will reach approximately one-half million
native and non-native visitors during the four-year grant.
Evaluation conducted by the Institute for Learning Innovation and Native Pathways will track participant outcomes and the potential for broader sustainable impact on their institutions. The project incorporates a new approach toward evaluation, one that embraces joint interpretation of data by teams with different yet complementary evaluation approaches (informal science evaluation and indigenous evaluation), and that models the type of cross-cultural collaboration that the project itself is designed to support. To achieve strategic impact, we will document the extent to which it is possible to juxtapose two worldviews for a balanced and two-way communication in an informal, local context (i.e., museum and native community). Results will be generalizable to other cultural bridging projects and should, through ongoing dissemination of the legacy document to museums nationally, have a meaningful impact on the way ISE providers engage minority populations to discover new ways of approaching STEM content.
Project Contacts:
Please contact the following for additional information on the Cosmic Serpent Project:
Dr.
http://www.indigenouseducation.org
email: ncm@indigenouseducation.org
Dr. David Begay, Co-Principal Investigator, Indigenous Education Institute
http://www.indigenouseducation.org
email: dbegay@gmail.com
Dr. Laura Peticolas, Co-Principal Investigator, Center for Science Education, UC Berkeley
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu
email: laura@ssl.berkeley.edu
