Thank you! The contribution from Northwest Arctic Borough Elders and community members really enhanced the Qanniksuq: It is Snowing project. We continue to learn and grow together and it has been wonderful to witness the relationships develop. It is our hope that this place-based project will be a resource for many. 

Thanks Emmanuel! It has been such a delight to work on this project, and it is bittersweet to see it coming to its conclusion.

Thank you for watching our video, Nuria! Developing the resources could not have been accomplished without the involvement of the local community members. We were gifted stories, knowledge and cultural understandings which helped identify activities for teaching children. We are working with 11 schools within the NWAB School District. Each school has a bin full of curriculum materials and a binder with the Teacher Manual and Student Guides. You can check out the Educational Videos, Teacher Resources and more by clicking here. 

We had the privilege of pilot testing all nine activities with a seasoned teacher. His classmates' experience offered invaluable feedback. The school year is over for the NWABSD, so we look forward to hearing teachers' feedback for the '22-'23 school year!

Hello Nuria, I'm so glad you asked that question. I'm pleased to say that the Northwest Arctic Borough School District is so pleased with the curriculum they have adopted it as mandatory curriculum for the district, so it will be used in all middle-school classrooms throughout the region for at least the next few years. To support districtwide implementation, a supplemental award supported teacher professional development training, which was provided in February of 2022. The district made our PD the In-service option for all of its science teachers and its Iñupiaq educators. Many of the Iñupiaq educators wanted to work with the curriculum, and some of the science teachers were eager to collaborate with the Iñupiaq educators in their school, so pairing up the educators in the training made sense to the district and to our team. 

After the PD was provided, All of the science and Iñupiaq educators received their own teachers manual, and each school received a kit full of supplies to instruct the curriculum. Most of the supplies in the kits are reusable, and consumables are low cost and easily obtainable, even in rural Alaska.

Teachers have helped us learn how best to provide resources for future projects. Packaging and branding helps keep one kit's contents separate from another, since most rural Alaska communities receive their freight in the same containers our supply kits are shipped in. Timing for implementation is also a lesson learned. We had originally proposed to disseminate resources in the fall. Of course schools were preoccupied with other concerns at the beginning of the school year due to the pandemic, so flexibility was important and prompted us to move our implementation to the spring, just after school resumed following the holidays, but before testing and end-of-year priorities could eclipse and overwhelm teachers.

It is great the the curriculum is now mandatory for the district. That's amazing! 

Thanks for explaining the logistics. There are so many things that COVID has impacted that we have to think on our feet to adapt as things shift. 

It was very interesting to read about the dissemination of the materials. Having to think about how the books and other materials will physically make it to the teachers is an added layer to the work in an already complex setting. Thanks for sharing the everyday things that make a project. Very illuminating. 

Hi Cory, I think the answers to questions 1 and 2 might overlap a little bit. We have built professional learning into the curriculum to some extent in order to make it possible for a teacher with little or no experience (teaching or related to place & culture) can pick it up and teach it with minimal prep time, so some of our general design principals include providing background information, supply lists, standards addressed, and step-by-step instructions for each activity in the teacher's manual that accompanies the student guide. Other design principles for our curriculum were to highlight in each lesson the Iñupiat Iḷitqusiat (values) represented in the lesson. Most activities are tactile and many require students to work in teams. Because rural schools often have multi-age classrooms, instruction is in levels rather than grade-specific, and most activities have extension ideas for students who want to delve deeper than the typical classroom period will allow.

Looping back to the professional learning, we just completed a professional development workshop to support the dissemination of this curriculum. Some features of that workshop included: (1) Overview/orientation of the unit and the materials in the learning kits; (2) Virtual tour of the Iñupiaq snow innovations at the UA Museum of the North; (3) Hands-on lessons led by a master science teacher; (4) Iñupiaq vocabulary session with Iñupiaq Elder and UAF Language Instructor Hannah Paniyavluk Loon; (5) Q&A with rural teachers who piloted the curriculum - lessons learned; (6) Q&A with snow experts including Alaska Native Elders and UAF researchers.

Hi Rebecca. Each community and culture is different from the next and you can't know for sure that your efforts will be well received until you reach out to the community. We always connect with the local Alaska Native Tribal Organization and the school district while we are in the process of writing the proposal. We don't want to say we will work with a community and find they are not interested in collaborating. Here in Alaska we have the issue of so many researchers studying the Arctic and wanting to work with the communities in the region that the small villages scattered across the region can become oversaturated with science and they might start to shut people out. Make the first call to the Tribe and have a genuine conversation about what you want to do and why you want to do it. Follow up with a short email that lists all the salient points, then, keep track and make sure you carry out all that you say you will do. If the Tribe approves of the work, ask them if there are one or two people they can recommend you work with, and let them know you will compensate those people for their time. Eliminate the word "volunteer" from your vocabulary when working with Indigenous people. They are giving their valuable time and often the intellectual property of the Tribe, and you demonstrate that you see it's value by paying for it. Once you have the Tribe on board, contact the school district Superintendent and get them on board with the project. In small rural communities, the Chief and the Superintendent will know all of the community leaders, so start asking for referrals from them and follow up on your leads. Make frequent in-person visits to the community and on each visit, try to see someone at the Tribe and someone at the district office. You can also stop in and introduce yourself at: The borough office, the city office, the police station, library, church, or other public offices. If there is a radio station or newspaper, stop by and see if they have suggestions of who to talk to. If there's a radio station, ask if you can go on the air to talk about your project. Arrange to have a public event to explain your project (bring food and, if possible, door prizes). Keep going back. Listen to people when they say what has frustrated them in the past and then, don't do that thing! 

Lynda, Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. These are a lot of wonderful ideas. One of the challenges that we are facing is that we are working with all of rural Utah, and there are several Native American nations with whom we may interact, depending on which teachers participate in our project each year. The most populous are the Navajo and Ute tribes but there are also Paiute, Shoshone, and other nations. We have a teacher from a Ute school already participating this year. Because of our focus on rural teachers, we hope to help each teacher connect with local leaders and resources, so these suggestions will be quite valuable as we move forward and facilitate that relationship building. Thank you.

I can understand how challenging that must be! Is your project in early stages or well underway? If in the early stages, you might consider a phased approach so that teachers and participants to join the project in early years can mentor others later in the progression of the project. I have found some success in that approach with other projects. I would love to stay in touch with you about your project and hear how things are going. Perhaps we can compare notes and share ideas.

Thank you, Lynda, yes we are just starting out. We do have some built in mentoring by prior participants. I would love to stay in touch. 

Thanks for asking that question Patrick. We believe these materials are transferable to other regions and cultures of Alaska. Some help from the new community wanting to adopt the curriculum is needed. For instance, in the curriculum there are key terms translated into the local Alaska Native dialect for our target audience, in this case, that language is Iñupiaq. If you were going to adopt the curriculum in another community, you might enlist the help of a Native language speaker in that community to translate those same words into one or more local dialects. While the videos portray scenes from the Northwest Arctic region of Alaska, you could still use those videos in the new location, then encourage a discussion in the local classroom about how the scenes shown in the video are similar or different from those you see locally. We encourage other communities to film snow conditions in their region and share them with our project (assuming all necessary licenses and permissions are available).

A proposal to scale-up proposal for this project is currently in consideration. We believe the TRACK Team of advisors can be enlarged to include expertise from across the state of Alaska. When that is the case, expertise and knowledge on various topics can be brought in representing all of Alaska. Our research indicated that the video resources were highly engaging, flexible, and met the needs of rural Alaska teachers. In our scale-up, a repository of media resources will be assembled that can be articulated for many subject areas, grade levels, and regions of the state. Long-term, this type of resource can even be expanded beyond Alaska.

Hi Rita. Thank you for your question. You can find our curriculum and other resources here. We hope you enjoy! 

Thanks for asking that question Rita. One of our next research questions addresses the transferability of the resources. Anyone is welcome to use the curriculum and it can be downloaded and printed, or used in digital format from the project website at https://sites.google.com/alaska.edu/snow/. The kits would have to be assembled by the school as those supplies were only provided by the grant. We believe the resources are transferable outside the local region, with some help from people in the community wanting to adopt the curriculum. For instance, there are key terms translated into the local Alaska Native dialect for our target audience, in this case, that language is Iñupiaq. If you were going to adopt the curriculum in another community with an Indigenous population, you might enlist the help of a Native language speaker within the school or community to translate those same words into the local dialect. Then, just substitute the Iñupiaq words for the Native language words used in your location. Similarly, the videos portray scenes from the Northwest Arctic region of Alaska. You could still use those videos in your classroom, then encourage a discussion in the classroom about how the scenes shown in the video are similar or different from those you see locally. We encourage other communities to film snow conditions in their region and share them with our project (assuming all necessary licenses and permissions are available). 

Hello Mary Alice,

I'm happy to share our framework with you. Briefly, the framework consists of eight steps: 

1: Teambuilding: Construct a TRACK team of Indigenous community members, STEM researchers and other participants such as educators and project advisors.

2. Use Backwards Design principles (McTighe & Wiggins, 2004) to map educational content that aligns with relevant standards and frameworks, embeds cultural intellectual resources, and incorporates STEM research.

3. Draft education products incorporating established Indigenous pedagogies. Note: Our model includes a Student Guide, Teacher's Manual, educational videos, and bilingual/multilingual vocabulary multimedia.

4. Review of draft products by TRACK Team members, STEM researchers, Advisory Board members and other participants. TRACK Team has final approval of content.

5. Revise products to address recommendations of reviewers as approved by TRACK Team.

6. Pilot test products with a sample of the target audience. Teachers provide feedback based on pilot testing. Feedback is carefully reviewed by TRACK Team and final revisions are determined based on discussion with the group.

7. Revise products based on pilot test outcomes and recommended revisions.

8. Implement and disseminate products broadly.

In-person interaction with the TRACK Team is critical to success with this project as several of its members, at least with our project, are Alaska Native Elders. In-person, group communication is culturally appropriate and puts Elders at ease.

It was also important to be patient and follow the leading of the Elders among our participants. As we carefully followed the examples they set, and allowed the work to progress on their timescales, much fruitage resulted that was ultimately embraced by the community.

McTighe, J. and Wiggins, G. (2004). Understanding by Design Professional Development Workbook. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Alexandria, VA.

Thanks so much. This is really useful. 

Alexander, you ask some great questions! We have submitted a proposal for a scale-up to this grant. If funded, it will support four more years of work with the people in this school district and will provide some longer-term data, although most of our data is qualitative.

For this project, we were trying to determine whether or not the place-based resources developed according to the Cultural Connections Process Model led to increased student engagement, and not necessarily measuring the student engagement per se. An Iñupiaq researcher and co-PI created surveys for students and teachers, interviewed teachers, and conducted observations to obtain the data. An external evaluator also was employed, who carried out formative and summative evaluation work that addressed student engagement.

Teachers remarked that students went from not attending science classes at all, to enthusiastic participation when this unit of instruction was being taught. Although this is not an indicator of whether or not the students are considering science as a discipline for future study, it speaks to their affect toward science when the content has relevance to the audience. With further work, I believe we can obtain a clear answer to that question, and I believe it will be a "yes." After all, Alaska Native people from the earliest times have lived and loved a world filled with science. 

Hello Rebecca! Backwards Design principles were used to ensure all relevant NGSS, Alaska Science Standards, Alaska Cultural Standards, and Iñupiaq Learning Framework concepts were addressed in the lessons that were created for the curriculum. The unit consisted of only 9 lessons, which took most teachers about 2-3 weeks to teach in their classrooms. In Alaska's rural school districts, each school has an Alaska Native teacher who has students part of the day, so it worked out well that the Iñupiaq educators in the schools appreciated this curriculum and were willing to collaborate with the elementary and/or science teachers to help cover the material. That collaboration helped by sharing the teaching time for science and for Native studies. 

In the midst of the pandemic we went the extra mile to see this project through to success. We wrote alternative activities for students learning remotely and also created a Canvas (LMS) version of the student guide to make it easier for teachers to use the resources when the schools had to close due to high infection rates. We also obtained and pre-packaged 1:1 student supplies and shipped those out to the schools so teachers would not have to worry about how to get the materials needed so students could do all the hands-on activities at home. We were quick to respond to the needs of the teachers in this way, which made it easy for them to use this resource over other tools available at the time.

You are correct that some teachers embrace these types of curricula and others are resistant to use them. That's why we initially envisioned it as a supplemental resource that could augment core instruction, but would be useful in providing place-based content in rural Alaska classrooms. However, after pilot testing the curriculum in the Northwest Arctic Borough School District, the decision was made to implement this resource and another product we created on the subject of the northern lights as mandatory science instruction. You can review our northern lights curriculum here.

We worked with former rural Alaska and Alaska Native classroom teachers in the development process for both curricula. As you surmised, in-service teachers have so much going on, it would have been nearly impossible to make progress on these resources trying to work with teachers during the school year, especially in the midst of the pandemic.

Dear Lynda,

Thank you so much for your detailed response! I'm so glad to hear that these materials have been well-received -- you have shared so many examples in this discussion about the importance of understanding the educational infrastructure to make this a successful project. Congratulations to you and the team!

Non-Natives have historically (and in present) done so much to destroy trust, it is understandable that it is hard won. Be patient and just be careful to make sure you do everything you promise. That's my best advice. Please keep in touch!

It truly was a co-productive work. I know you will find similar success with your project, Anasilvia!