The Indigenous Mapping project redesigned a community science data entry and analysis tool called FieldScope, specifically for indigenous communities that want to preserve, share and teach their place-based resources in ways that respect and protect sacred knowledge. This project can help communities solve local issues with their own environmental and cultural data. Indigenous Mapping is for anyone who wants to collect and use information about place, to answer questions or address issues within their own community.
Discussion from the 2019 STEM for All Video Showcase (35 posts)
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 12, 2019 | 06:21 p.m.
Welcome to our video: Indigenous Mapping. We appreciate your interest and look forward to answering any questions you may have. In addition, we are very interested to know about other similar projects. If you are involved in a related project or if you are interested in joining our project please contact me, Sharon Nelson-Barber, the PI, at snelson@wested.org. Happy viewing!
Anne Kern
Higher Ed Faculty
May 18, 2019 | 08:36 p.m.
This is a great project!
You talk about an "app" to facilitate making the maps. Can you tell me more about that or give me the name and contact of someone who could? I have a project starting up in June that has Tribal youth collecting stories about their local environment and talking to Tribal elders and leaders about the decision-making process they go through to let the youth make high-quality podcasts about it. I would love to see if we could try to use the App.
Sean O'Connor
Co-Presenter Citizen Science Program Manager
May 20, 2019 | 10:00 a.m.
Hello. Thanks for your comment! I am one of the team members that worked on the FieldScope side of things...this is the app that is talked about in the video. Feel free to check out more at fieldscope.org, or reach out to me directly about it.
Brian Drayton
Facilitator Co-Director
May 13, 2019 | 06:14 a.m.
This is really interesting. I'd love to know more about what communities have used this tool so far, and whether the use of a shared tool has led to cross-community conversations?
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 13, 2019 | 08:56 a.m.
Right now we are working primarily with communities in the Pacific region, but our intent is for there to be cross-community conversations among these groups and beyond.
Hi Sharon, What a great project! This tool sounds really helpful! I'm going to share the video with a colleague who uses mapping with young students to foster a sense of historical and present connection with places of interest in Seattle.
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 18, 2019 | 12:44 a.m.
Thanx for taking a peek Barbara. That would be fantastic. We are hoping the tool will be useful for everyone and it would be great to follow up to see how your colleague might use the process.
Victor van den Bergh
Facilitator User Researcher & Evaluator
May 13, 2019 | 08:35 a.m.
I'm curious about how you decided which modifications to make to FieldScope to make it more suitable for preserving and sharing indigenous knowledge. For example, your video highlights a feature that allows users to pick which audiences get to see which content. Where did that idea come from? Did you have discussions with indigenous communities during the formative phase of your project? Thanks for sharing your work!
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 13, 2019 | 08:52 a.m.
Thank you for your interest Victor. Yes, we are working directly with Indigenous communities and the modifications were devised in accordance with their needs.
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I also found the aspect about user choice of how information is shared a very interesting and important feature. Are you finding so far in the communities using the tool that they are choosing to disseminate both ways (publically and privately)? How far along is this particular project?
1
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Found helpful:
Liz Cook
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 14, 2019 | 03:28 p.m.
Thank you so much for your interest Carrie. We are finding that participants prefer to share the cultural information privately, which was the purpose they wanted to develop at the outset. Going forward there may be more differentiation of what cultural information is made available to whom. Will have to see. It is serving an important need at this point.
1
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We are also very thoughtful about private knowledge vs. public knowledge. How and by whom is it decided to grant access to private information? Does the database have in effect tribal online administrators who are trusted with sharing private information with other respected tribal members? Thanks very much for your work.
Shannon Voirol
History Colorado
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 15, 2019 | 02:16 p.m.
Communities decide, and, of course only they can. The local teams, with whom we collaborate side-by-side understand the terrain (of all kinds) and make decisions on individual bases. Non-community members are not involved in these decisions. Going forward there will likely be issues to address. At present, it appears that this innovation is being appreciated for its promise to preserve important knowledge for community and future generations .
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 16, 2019 | 07:51 p.m.
Hi Shannon. My response somehow did not post earlier. We work collaboratively with communities and follow their design preferences. Appropriate community members, as determined by the groups themselves, make decisions about what gets shared and with whom.
What a wonderful way to make learning relevant to students as they explore their own places and traditions! I live in WI and wonder how this resource would work for the native American tribes in our state and in the midwest region? It was a new resource for me. Thank you for sharing your work.
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 13, 2019 | 11:32 a.m.
Our sense is that this tool would be helpful for Indigenous students and others everywhere!
This looks really interesting! I love the idea of utilizing place-based resources.
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 13, 2019 | 02:19 p.m.
Thanx for posting Cathy. Yes, our collaborations are yielding the best approaches rooted in local processes.
Ginger Fitzhugh
Facilitator Senior Research Associate
May 14, 2019 | 04:19 p.m.
Thanks for your video, Sharon. I'm curious about how you have used evaluation to inform the development or use of the tool. In particular, have indigenous ways of knowing informed your evaluation thinking?
1
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Found helpful:
Liz Cook
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 14, 2019 | 05:16 p.m.
Yes, we are informed by the Indigenous Evaluation Framework available thru the American Indian Higher Education Consortium.
1
Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available
What a beautiful video! Have you been in touch with the Half Earth Project? E.O. Wilson has brought together a group of scientists who are trying to save the earth by focusing on half the earth. Specifically, this involves indigenous lands. The data that you are collecting is so important. Are you sharing your data with Half Earth scientists?
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 14, 2019 | 08:03 p.m.
Half-Earth Project and the Regen Network are on our radar. We are actively searching for sponsors to continue to maintain the security and viability of the FieldScope program beyond the grant period. Might you be able to refer us to any potential sponsors like this?
I was fascinated by this video. I may have a bias since I spend 3 years living in Chuuk. One of my vivid memories of living in Chuuk was learning the importance of places and the names of places. I am happy to see how your team is starting with local knowledge as a basis for your efforts.
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 15, 2019 | 02:04 p.m.
How wonderful! Yes, Chuuk and other entities in FSM are wonderful places for all of our learning.
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 16, 2019 | 07:56 p.m.
Hi William. I responded to your post earlier, but cannot find. Appreciate your interest and understand your connection to the topic. We can learn so much from FSM and the entire region and appreciate the opportunity to continue to collaborate with these professionals.
Brian Drayton
Facilitator Co-Director
May 15, 2019 | 06:28 a.m.
Sharon, I was thinking about community discourse processes in connection with your work. (Of course we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg in this presentation, even with the lively discussion!). Is there a sense that in the communities you are working with, some people are real "authorities" or generally considered experts -- to whom other people "defer" or bring questions as they capture their knowledge about their landscape? How does that support (or maybe inhibit???) the capture and sharing of the community's science knowledge? Are there training processes or apprenticeships (e.g. for traditional medicine or other skills/expertise) that you tap into — or need to negotiate with?
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 15, 2019 | 02:02 p.m.
An important question. There certainly are appropriate interactive protocols operating in each community. The non-community members on our team have some insights, but don't claim to "know." However, we work closely with community liaisons. Working side-by-side and in collaboration with community members, they identify the needs and guide the processes. The features developed were at their direction. There also is some fluidity, should things need massaging. Protocols are recognizable and figure into our ongoing assessments of the work.
What a fabulous project. Thank you to the PIs and funding organizations to make it possible. I am hopeful that you find great success and that indigenous populations find it valuable.
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Co-Presenter Principal Investigator
May 16, 2019 | 07:44 p.m.
We appreciate your interest Kathe. We look forward to collaborating with additional Indigenous communities and assessing further how this work can be useful.
What a great project! Thank you for sharing. I was wondering what kind of outcomes you've seen from this project, if any, at this point in time. I saw you responded that the focus right now is in the Pacific - how have indigenous communities in that area been using the data entered into the system? Do you have any examples of local issues that communities have been working on given the access to data in this system?
Jon Boxerman
Lead Presenter Research Associate
May 17, 2019 | 08:12 p.m.
Hi Christopher, Thank you for your post. We don't yet have definitive outcomes for this projects. We are happy to share our preliminary outcomes with you. Participants we are working with in the Pacific are wrestling with issues pertaining to the effect of invasive species, mediating sea level rise, and overfishing.
After hearing about your project over the years, it was great to learn more about it through your video. I am interested to know more about how the modified FieldScope tools is currently being used in classrooms and with students. It looks like there are lots of possibilities.
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
Welcome to our video: Indigenous Mapping. We appreciate your interest and look forward to answering any questions you may have. In addition, we are very interested to know about other similar projects. If you are involved in a related project or if you are interested in joining our project please contact me, Sharon Nelson-Barber, the PI, at snelson@wested.org. Happy viewing!
Anne Kern
This is a great project!
You talk about an "app" to facilitate making the maps. Can you tell me more about that or give me the name and contact of someone who could? I have a project starting up in June that has Tribal youth collecting stories about their local environment and talking to Tribal elders and leaders about the decision-making process they go through to let the youth make high-quality podcasts about it. I would love to see if we could try to use the App.
Sean O'Connor
Citizen Science Program Manager
Hello. Thanks for your comment! I am one of the team members that worked on the FieldScope side of things...this is the app that is talked about in the video. Feel free to check out more at fieldscope.org, or reach out to me directly about it.
Brian Drayton
Co-Director
This is really interesting. I'd love to know more about what communities have used this tool so far, and whether the use of a shared tool has led to cross-community conversations?
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
Right now we are working primarily with communities in the Pacific region, but our intent is for there to be cross-community conversations among these groups and beyond.
Barbara Rogoff
Hi Sharon, What a great project! This tool sounds really helpful! I'm going to share the video with a colleague who uses mapping with young students to foster a sense of historical and present connection with places of interest in Seattle.
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
Thanx for taking a peek Barbara. That would be fantastic. We are hoping the tool will be useful for everyone and it would be great to follow up to see how your colleague might use the process.
Victor van den Bergh
User Researcher & Evaluator
I'm curious about how you decided which modifications to make to FieldScope to make it more suitable for preserving and sharing indigenous knowledge. For example, your video highlights a feature that allows users to pick which audiences get to see which content. Where did that idea come from? Did you have discussions with indigenous communities during the formative phase of your project? Thanks for sharing your work!
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
Thank you for your interest Victor. Yes, we are working directly with Indigenous communities and the modifications were devised in accordance with their needs.
Liz Cook
Carrie Schuman
I also found the aspect about user choice of how information is shared a very interesting and important feature. Are you finding so far in the communities using the tool that they are choosing to disseminate both ways (publically and privately)? How far along is this particular project?
Liz Cook
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
Thank you so much for your interest Carrie. We are finding that participants prefer to share the cultural information privately, which was the purpose they wanted to develop at the outset. Going forward there may be more differentiation of what cultural information is made available to whom. Will have to see. It is serving an important need at this point.
Carrie Schuman
Shannon Voirol
Hi Sharon,
I'm one of the CO PI's on the the Ute STEM project https://stemforall2019.videohall.com/presentations/1602 with Liz Cook and Sheila Goff.
We are also very thoughtful about private knowledge vs. public knowledge. How and by whom is it decided to grant access to private information? Does the database have in effect tribal online administrators who are trusted with sharing private information with other respected tribal members? Thanks very much for your work.
Shannon Voirol
History Colorado
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
Communities decide, and, of course only they can. The local teams, with whom we collaborate side-by-side understand the terrain (of all kinds) and make decisions on individual bases. Non-community members are not involved in these decisions. Going forward there will likely be issues to address. At present, it appears that this innovation is being appreciated for its promise to preserve important knowledge for community and future generations .
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
Hi Shannon. My response somehow did not post earlier. We work collaboratively with communities and follow their design preferences. Appropriate community members, as determined by the groups themselves, make decisions about what gets shared and with whom.
Kathy Huncosky
What a wonderful way to make learning relevant to students as they explore their own places and traditions! I live in WI and wonder how this resource would work for the native American tribes in our state and in the midwest region? It was a new resource for me. Thank you for sharing your work.
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
Our sense is that this tool would be helpful for Indigenous students and others everywhere!
Cathy Carroll
This looks really interesting! I love the idea of utilizing place-based resources.
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
Thanx for posting Cathy. Yes, our collaborations are yielding the best approaches rooted in local processes.
Ginger Fitzhugh
Senior Research Associate
Thanks for your video, Sharon. I'm curious about how you have used evaluation to inform the development or use of the tool. In particular, have indigenous ways of knowing informed your evaluation thinking?
Liz Cook
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
Yes, we are informed by the Indigenous Evaluation Framework available thru the American Indian Higher Education Consortium.
Liz Cook
Joanne Figueiredo
What a beautiful video! Have you been in touch with the Half Earth Project? E.O. Wilson has brought together a group of scientists who are trying to save the earth by focusing on half the earth. Specifically, this involves indigenous lands. The data that you are collecting is so important. Are you sharing your data with Half Earth scientists?
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
Half-Earth Project and the Regen Network are on our radar. We are actively searching for sponsors to continue to maintain the security and viability of the FieldScope program beyond the grant period. Might you be able to refer us to any potential sponsors like this?
William Zahner
I was fascinated by this video. I may have a bias since I spend 3 years living in Chuuk. One of my vivid memories of living in Chuuk was learning the importance of places and the names of places. I am happy to see how your team is starting with local knowledge as a basis for your efforts.
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
How wonderful! Yes, Chuuk and other entities in FSM are wonderful places for all of our learning.
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
Hi William. I responded to your post earlier, but cannot find. Appreciate your interest and understand your connection to the topic. We can learn so much from FSM and the entire region and appreciate the opportunity to continue to collaborate with these professionals.
Brian Drayton
Co-Director
Sharon, I was thinking about community discourse processes in connection with your work. (Of course we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg in this presentation, even with the lively discussion!). Is there a sense that in the communities you are working with, some people are real "authorities" or generally considered experts -- to whom other people "defer" or bring questions as they capture their knowledge about their landscape? How does that support (or maybe inhibit???) the capture and sharing of the community's science knowledge? Are there training processes or apprenticeships (e.g. for traditional medicine or other skills/expertise) that you tap into — or need to negotiate with?
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
An important question. There certainly are appropriate interactive protocols operating in each community. The non-community members on our team have some insights, but don't claim to "know." However, we work closely with community liaisons. Working side-by-side and in collaboration with community members, they identify the needs and guide the processes. The features developed were at their direction. There also is some fluidity, should things need massaging. Protocols are recognizable and figure into our ongoing assessments of the work.
Kathe Kanim
What a fabulous project. Thank you to the PIs and funding organizations to make it possible. I am hopeful that you find great success and that indigenous populations find it valuable.
Sharon Nelson-Barber
Principal Investigator
We appreciate your interest Kathe. We look forward to collaborating with additional Indigenous communities and assessing further how this work can be useful.
Christopher Cappelli
What a great project! Thank you for sharing. I was wondering what kind of outcomes you've seen from this project, if any, at this point in time. I saw you responded that the focus right now is in the Pacific - how have indigenous communities in that area been using the data entered into the system? Do you have any examples of local issues that communities have been working on given the access to data in this system?
Jon Boxerman
Research Associate
Hi Christopher, Thank you for your post. We don't yet have definitive outcomes for this projects. We are happy to share our preliminary outcomes with you. Participants we are working with in the Pacific are wrestling with issues pertaining to the effect of invasive species, mediating sea level rise, and overfishing.
Jonathan Lewis
Innovative and thoughtful project design. Nice work! Thanks for sharing it with such a nice video.
Jon Boxerman
Research Associate
Thank you so much for your interest. Please keep in touch if you would like ongoing information about our project.
Sue Jacobs
Great project.
Kirsten Daehler
Hi team,
After hearing about your project over the years, it was great to learn more about it through your video. I am interested to know more about how the modified FieldScope tools is currently being used in classrooms and with students. It looks like there are lots of possibilities.
Further posting is closed as the event has ended.