The film “Traditional Knowledge + Modern Science” was made as part of the Ute STEM Project, in the summer of 2017 and 2018 when Ute elders, Ute youth, and scientists visited sites in the Western Slope and San Luis Valley of Colorado. In the film Ute elders and scientists discuss the traditional ecological knowledge and contemporary science practice.
The Ute STEM Project explores the integration of Western science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and Native American Knowledge bases and builds on over 20 years of collaboration between History Colorado, the three Ute Indian tribes, and scientists. The five-year grant engages 128,000 STEM learners, educators, and experts across Colorado and Utah in cutting-edge archaeological and ethnobotanical field work; interactive exhibits and videos; public programs for families and adults; K-12 education outreach programs, digital badges, and teacher training; and findings for museums, tribes, and scientists.
The project work highlights Ute peoples’ systematic knowledge of diverse ecosystems and plant use, engineering of wood shelters, mathematical patterns in beadwork, and technological innovations as a complementary form of STEM knowledge. Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is the knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous peoples,developed from experience gained and passed down over the centuries and adapted to the local culture and environment. TEK and western STEM fields were once viewed as opposites. Now, projects like Ute STEM are advancing these two systems as complementary and valuable approaches to scientific understanding.
How great for youth to learn early that Traditional Ecological Knowledge is equally valuable in STEM and other disciplines! Do the students participate in conducting research or creating projects to highlight the contributions and/or parallel tenets of TEK?
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Shannon Voirol
Liz Cook
Lead Presenter Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
May 14, 2019 | 04:42 p.m.
Hi Nikki, good question. The collaborative fieldwork featured in the video was the first year of the project, and in the next year we are hoping to engage more Ute students at the three tribes in more in-depth projects. We're planning to create and connect with opportunities that might range from elder-youth workshops, to undergraduate internships, to science fair projects that highlight Ute TEK.
Noah Feinstein
Facilitator Associate Professor
May 13, 2019 | 10:13 p.m.
This sounds like a fantastic program, and I love that History Colorado is involved in it - what a great example of how a museum can bring people together! Could you tell me more about what the participants took away from their experience? In designing this program, what outcomes were important to you - and were you able to conduct any evaluation around those outcomes? It sounds like the program made a big impression, and I'd love to know more about the impact it had on the youth, as well as the Ute Elders and the Western Scientists.
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Shannon Voirol
Liz Cook
Lead Presenter Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
May 14, 2019 | 04:56 p.m.
Thanks for the comments, Noah. Our goals for the Ute youth participants over the course of the five year project (we are in year 3) are to have an increased interest in both Traditional Ecological Knowledge and STEM, to see themselves as STEM learners and practitioners, and in the long-term, increased STEM education and workforce participation. Our evaluation for this audience and these goals has been in-depth interviews, both on camera and via phone after the summer field trips. We're finding that the youth (and elders) are definitely interested in the connections between STEM and TEK, and are excited to see themselves as TEK practitioners. In the next phases of the project we may focus more on how students build STEM identities.
This video is actually one of nine videos we created for our exhibit on the project. The other videos are available to view on vimeo https://vimeo.com/showcase/5723628 The "Youth, Elders, and Scientists" and "Next Generations" videos have more footage of the youth talking about their experiences.
Liz
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Jonathan Lewis
Noah Feinstein
Rabiah Mayas
Facilitator Associate Director
May 14, 2019 | 01:01 a.m.
Thank you for sharing this project and for the critical critical reminder of how science has been lived and practiced in Native and Indigenous populations long before modern history. I've only recently learned about TEK and am curious about how your program elevated the key relationships between living things and their environment. Did the Western-influenced sciences demonstrate any shift in their self-positioning or self-perception with respect to the natural world?
As a practitioner, I also wonder what kind of preparation did you provide to the Ute Elders and scientists specifically in support of their collaborative work? Did you find a particular type of support, training or coaching was critical, either in advance or along the way?
Liz Cook
Lead Presenter Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
May 14, 2019 | 05:10 p.m.
Those are both great questions! Let me answer the second one first:
The Ute elders and the scientists from the Dominguez Archaeological Research Group had already been working together on a number of projects, so we were very fortunate to build on the relationships and best practices that they had developed over the past decade. One of the takeaways from our first year of field work was we ensured that the TEK experts always spoke first when were looking at different archaeological sites, ecological zones, historic locations. We found that it was effective for the science experts to engage as part of the TEK-centered conversation, but that it was much more challenging for the TEK experts to thread their perspectives into conversations that were initiated from a "science" perspective.
The first question is really interesting. Dr. Kelly Kindscher, an ethnobotanist and one of our scientist partners would probably say that his work already ties into those key relationships with living things. I'll be curious to ask that question of some of the archaeologists on the project. I know that some of them have mentioned a shifting focus to "Cultural Landscapes", and I'm curious how that is playing out for them in more detail.
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Marilu Lopez Fretts
Rabiah Mayas
Facilitator Associate Director
May 16, 2019 | 08:05 p.m.
Thank you for the reply, Liz! Love the piece about having the TEK experts speak first; it seems like a simple approach, but I imagine one that requires consistent intention and attention. And as a biochemist (with no field work) I can't say that I ever felt a strong connection to living things and nature through my work, though many years later I lament the opportunities missed to create such ties. With our work now with middle graders, I'm more and more interested in supporting development of STEM identities through non-human-centered views of the natural world. Thank you for sharing this work!
1
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Hi. It is great to hear about a project leveraging Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). I am interested in knowing more about the teacher training aspect of this work. Were aspects of this program integrated into the school day curriculum?
thanks!
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Shannon Voirol
Liz Cook
Lead Presenter Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
May 14, 2019 | 05:26 p.m.
Hi Catherine,
We're just about to start on the teacher training and K-12 outreach components of the project this summer and the upcoming school year. For educators our medium-range goal is increase ability and motivation to teach both Ute content and STEM skills. Because Colorado social studies standards have Colorado history primarily at 4th grade, we think we may have some opportunities to explore how elementary educators can combine STEM and social studies in innovative ways. Now I'm thinking we'll have to document this on film for next year's showcase.
Anne Kern
Facilitator Associate Professor
May 15, 2019 | 04:20 a.m.
Aikenhead (Aikenhead & Michell, 2011) suggests the validity and reliability of Indigenous ways of knowing (or living in nature) can be thought of as the survivability of Indigenous people since time immemorial. Is there a way to bring together the two epistemologies, rather than view them as two separate ways of knowing? Thoughs?
Relatedly, I wonder if any part of the program connects Indigenous ways of living in nature with ideas about conservation?
Liz Cook
Lead Presenter Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
May 20, 2019 | 05:13 p.m.
To answer both of these questions:
Our hope is that this project is bringing together the two ways of knowing, and making more explicit the ways that they are deeply connected, and possibly form a whole. The evaluation interviews are highlighting the places that there are deep connections. The interviews are also highlighting what motivates an understanding of those connections. Is it a conversation ethos? Is it coming from a deep sense of identity, and desire to maintain a cultural identity, or transform a cultural identity? Great questions for us to explore further!
Brian Drayton
Researcher
May 15, 2019 | 07:49 a.m.
I hope you've checked out this video presentation on the Indigenous Mapping Project, with its attendant conversation.
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Shannon Voirol
Anne Kern
Facilitator Associate Professor
May 17, 2019 | 12:51 a.m.
Yes, I have, and this is awesome! In fact, I have asked my project team to look at is.
The researchers do 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.
Liz Cook
Lead Presenter Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
May 20, 2019 | 05:14 p.m.
Brian: The Indigenous Mapping Project looks amazing, and it's no great to see a practical, high-tech, complex solution to some of the questions of cultural IP that we've been pondering. I'm exciting to explore that project more, and see if there are ways to work together.
Shannon Voirol
Informal Educator
May 15, 2019 | 11:23 a.m.
Hi all
I'm Shannon one of the CO-Pi's with Liz on the project. To answer Nikki's good question about the students role in doing research and creating projects that highlight tenets of TEK/STEM that answer is yes. The students have been increasingly involved in the filming and interviewing of their elders about TEK. And those films are now on display at History Colorado Center in our exhibit Written on The Land. When that exhibit opened last December many of the Ute students travelled five hours to Denver to share their participation with their tribal leadership and our museum visitors. And more importantly, those films that Utestudents, elders and scientists are helping to make will also be part of exhibits that are on display in their tribal communities.
Fantastic project! Thank you for sharing your video.
1
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Liz Cook
Liz Cook
Lead Presenter Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
May 20, 2019 | 05:15 p.m.
Thanks, Toran!
Steve Longsdorf
K-12 Teacher
May 15, 2019 | 08:02 p.m.
It's so exciting to see Ute youth involved. And so exciting to know that there are so many possibilities for knowledge and appreciation of ancient practices. This work is so important.
1
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Very inspiring work. Thank you. You mentioned undergraduate internship possibilities. Are you aiming to leverage nearby funded projects that are working to ensure the success of underrepresented minority students (e.g., at Fort Lewis College)?
Liz Cook
Lead Presenter Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
May 20, 2019 | 05:24 p.m.
Jonathan, thanks for watching the video. That's a great suggestion. We've been working mostly with the Education Departments at the Ute Tribes, and I know building that stronger network between informal science education, formal K-20, and the tribes is big goal for everyone involved. The Fort Lewis STEM project is a great potential partnership.
1
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How inspiring. What Rich articulated about the importance of the land, and being on with land, as opposed to other forms of representing such relationships, was powerful. How did the youth describe their experiences, related to being on the land?
1
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Liz Cook
Liz Cook
Lead Presenter Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
May 20, 2019 | 05:27 p.m.
Great question, and great opportunity for me share one of my favorite videos that we created for the Ute STEM exhibit on display at History Colorado. This video was made in June 2018, during fieldwork in the San Luis Valley. https://vimeo.com/showcase/5723628/video/317367005
At the 3:40 mark, Jazmin Caremonoros, one of the youth participants from the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, talks about her own response to being in these landscapes.
I have to agree with Rabiah's and Cara's comments on what a wonderful project this is and how critical a reminder it is "of how science has been lived and practiced in Native and Indigenous populations long before modern history." There seems to be very rich potential for place-based learning for students (and PD for teachers). What a wonderful opportunity to "hit pause" on the fast-track of 'today' and review the level of appreciation and value that was associated with this type of living and learning. I wonder if any students and/or teachers have been able to use this experience as a jumping off point for integrating STEM/TEK into their classrooms and out-of-school activities.
Thanks for this video and project!
1
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Found helpful:
Liz Cook
Liz Cook
Lead Presenter Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
May 20, 2019 | 05:30 p.m.
Great question, in the next phase of the project we're hoping to see how we can make connections between the field experience and the classroom. The partners from the tribal education departments were interested in the opportunity to be seen as "STEM providers" for their local school districts, so we might have more for a video in 2020 or 2021.
Cara Duncan
How great for youth to learn early that Traditional Ecological Knowledge is equally valuable in STEM and other disciplines! Do the students participate in conducting research or creating projects to highlight the contributions and/or parallel tenets of TEK?
Shannon Voirol
Liz Cook
Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
Hi Nikki, good question. The collaborative fieldwork featured in the video was the first year of the project, and in the next year we are hoping to engage more Ute students at the three tribes in more in-depth projects. We're planning to create and connect with opportunities that might range from elder-youth workshops, to undergraduate internships, to science fair projects that highlight Ute TEK.
Noah Feinstein
Associate Professor
This sounds like a fantastic program, and I love that History Colorado is involved in it - what a great example of how a museum can bring people together! Could you tell me more about what the participants took away from their experience? In designing this program, what outcomes were important to you - and were you able to conduct any evaluation around those outcomes? It sounds like the program made a big impression, and I'd love to know more about the impact it had on the youth, as well as the Ute Elders and the Western Scientists.
Shannon Voirol
Liz Cook
Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
Thanks for the comments, Noah. Our goals for the Ute youth participants over the course of the five year project (we are in year 3) are to have an increased interest in both Traditional Ecological Knowledge and STEM, to see themselves as STEM learners and practitioners, and in the long-term, increased STEM education and workforce participation. Our evaluation for this audience and these goals has been in-depth interviews, both on camera and via phone after the summer field trips. We're finding that the youth (and elders) are definitely interested in the connections between STEM and TEK, and are excited to see themselves as TEK practitioners. In the next phases of the project we may focus more on how students build STEM identities.
This video is actually one of nine videos we created for our exhibit on the project. The other videos are available to view on vimeo https://vimeo.com/showcase/5723628 The "Youth, Elders, and Scientists" and "Next Generations" videos have more footage of the youth talking about their experiences.
Liz
Jonathan Lewis
Noah Feinstein
Rabiah Mayas
Associate Director
Thank you for sharing this project and for the critical critical reminder of how science has been lived and practiced in Native and Indigenous populations long before modern history. I've only recently learned about TEK and am curious about how your program elevated the key relationships between living things and their environment. Did the Western-influenced sciences demonstrate any shift in their self-positioning or self-perception with respect to the natural world?
As a practitioner, I also wonder what kind of preparation did you provide to the Ute Elders and scientists specifically in support of their collaborative work? Did you find a particular type of support, training or coaching was critical, either in advance or along the way?
Liz Cook
Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
Those are both great questions! Let me answer the second one first:
The Ute elders and the scientists from the Dominguez Archaeological Research Group had already been working together on a number of projects, so we were very fortunate to build on the relationships and best practices that they had developed over the past decade. One of the takeaways from our first year of field work was we ensured that the TEK experts always spoke first when were looking at different archaeological sites, ecological zones, historic locations. We found that it was effective for the science experts to engage as part of the TEK-centered conversation, but that it was much more challenging for the TEK experts to thread their perspectives into conversations that were initiated from a "science" perspective.
The first question is really interesting. Dr. Kelly Kindscher, an ethnobotanist and one of our scientist partners would probably say that his work already ties into those key relationships with living things. I'll be curious to ask that question of some of the archaeologists on the project. I know that some of them have mentioned a shifting focus to "Cultural Landscapes", and I'm curious how that is playing out for them in more detail.
Marilu Lopez Fretts
Rabiah Mayas
Associate Director
Thank you for the reply, Liz! Love the piece about having the TEK experts speak first; it seems like a simple approach, but I imagine one that requires consistent intention and attention. And as a biochemist (with no field work) I can't say that I ever felt a strong connection to living things and nature through my work, though many years later I lament the opportunities missed to create such ties. With our work now with middle graders, I'm more and more interested in supporting development of STEM identities through non-human-centered views of the natural world. Thank you for sharing this work!
Liz Cook
Catherine McCulloch
Hi. It is great to hear about a project leveraging Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). I am interested in knowing more about the teacher training aspect of this work. Were aspects of this program integrated into the school day curriculum?
thanks!
Shannon Voirol
Liz Cook
Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
Hi Catherine,
We're just about to start on the teacher training and K-12 outreach components of the project this summer and the upcoming school year. For educators our medium-range goal is increase ability and motivation to teach both Ute content and STEM skills. Because Colorado social studies standards have Colorado history primarily at 4th grade, we think we may have some opportunities to explore how elementary educators can combine STEM and social studies in innovative ways. Now I'm thinking we'll have to document this on film for next year's showcase.
Anne Kern
Associate Professor
Aikenhead (Aikenhead & Michell, 2011) suggests the validity and reliability of Indigenous ways of knowing (or living in nature) can be thought of as the survivability of Indigenous people since time immemorial. Is there a way to bring together the two epistemologies, rather than view them as two separate ways of knowing? Thoughs?
Barbara Rogoff
Relatedly, I wonder if any part of the program connects Indigenous ways of living in nature with ideas about conservation?
Liz Cook
Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
To answer both of these questions:
Our hope is that this project is bringing together the two ways of knowing, and making more explicit the ways that they are deeply connected, and possibly form a whole. The evaluation interviews are highlighting the places that there are deep connections. The interviews are also highlighting what motivates an understanding of those connections. Is it a conversation ethos? Is it coming from a deep sense of identity, and desire to maintain a cultural identity, or transform a cultural identity? Great questions for us to explore further!
Brian Drayton
I hope you've checked out this video presentation on the Indigenous Mapping Project, with its attendant conversation.
https://stemforall2019.videohall.com/presentati...
Shannon Voirol
Anne Kern
Associate Professor
Yes, I have, and this is awesome! In fact, I have asked my project team to look at is.
The researchers do 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.
Liz Cook
Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
Brian: The Indigenous Mapping Project looks amazing, and it's no great to see a practical, high-tech, complex solution to some of the questions of cultural IP that we've been pondering. I'm exciting to explore that project more, and see if there are ways to work together.
Shannon Voirol
Hi all
I'm Shannon one of the CO-Pi's with Liz on the project. To answer Nikki's good question about the students role in doing research and creating projects that highlight tenets of TEK/STEM that answer is yes. The students have been increasingly involved in the filming and interviewing of their elders about TEK. And those films are now on display at History Colorado Center in our exhibit Written on The Land. When that exhibit opened last December many of the Ute students travelled five hours to Denver to share their participation with their tribal leadership and our museum visitors. And more importantly, those films that Utestudents, elders and scientists are helping to make will also be part of exhibits that are on display in their tribal communities.
Torran Anderson
Fantastic project! Thank you for sharing your video.
Liz Cook
Liz Cook
Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
Thanks, Toran!
Steve Longsdorf
It's so exciting to see Ute youth involved. And so exciting to know that there are so many possibilities for knowledge and appreciation of ancient practices. This work is so important.
Liz Cook
Jonathan Lewis
Hi Liz
Very inspiring work. Thank you. You mentioned undergraduate internship possibilities. Are you aiming to leverage nearby funded projects that are working to ensure the success of underrepresented minority students (e.g., at Fort Lewis College)?
Liz Cook
Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
Jonathan, thanks for watching the video. That's a great suggestion. We've been working mostly with the Education Departments at the Ute Tribes, and I know building that stronger network between informal science education, formal K-20, and the tribes is big goal for everyone involved. The Fort Lewis STEM project is a great potential partnership.
Liz Cook
Edna Tan
How inspiring. What Rich articulated about the importance of the land, and being on with land, as opposed to other forms of representing such relationships, was powerful. How did the youth describe their experiences, related to being on the land?
Liz Cook
Liz Cook
Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
Great question, and great opportunity for me share one of my favorite videos that we created for the Ute STEM exhibit on display at History Colorado. This video was made in June 2018, during fieldwork in the San Luis Valley. https://vimeo.com/showcase/5723628/video/317367005
At the 3:40 mark, Jazmin Caremonoros, one of the youth participants from the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, talks about her own response to being in these landscapes.
Cynthia Crockett
I have to agree with Rabiah's and Cara's comments on what a wonderful project this is and how critical a reminder it is "of how science has been lived and practiced in Native and Indigenous populations long before modern history." There seems to be very rich potential for place-based learning for students (and PD for teachers). What a wonderful opportunity to "hit pause" on the fast-track of 'today' and review the level of appreciation and value that was associated with this type of living and learning. I wonder if any students and/or teachers have been able to use this experience as a jumping off point for integrating STEM/TEK into their classrooms and out-of-school activities.
Thanks for this video and project!
Liz Cook
Liz Cook
Environmental Educator/Exhibit Developer
Great question, in the next phase of the project we're hoping to see how we can make connections between the field experience and the classroom. The partners from the tribal education departments were interested in the opportunity to be seen as "STEM providers" for their local school districts, so we might have more for a video in 2020 or 2021.
Further posting is closed as the event has ended.