Tradition and innovation
A partnership between the college and the Anishinaabe tribe uses tribal knowledge to impart key STEM concepts
WHAT CAN BUILDING BIRCH BARK CANOES teach about geometry or tapping maple trees convey about chemistry? Quite a bit, as it turns out. Associate professor Gillian Roehrig and assistant professor Tamara Moore from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction; Stephan Carlson, professor and Extension educator with the College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Resource Sciences; and faculty from the Institute of Technology, in collaboration with White Earth Tribal College, are utilizing such traditional Native American knowledge to engage students on the White Earth Reservation, in northwestern Minnesota.
Some of the White Earth students took part in the Starbase program
at
the Minnesota Air National Guard Base, where they learned to
engineer
craft for Mars exploration.
The Reach for the Sky (RFTS) program, funded by the National Science Foundation, strives to make STEM more culturally relevant to the Anishinaabe youth. Tribal elders share their knowledge, while University researchers develop related curriculum to teach key concepts about science and math. Students also learn engineering through activities such as bike design and solar and wind energy production.
A boy tests his aeronautical
design skills with a picture-
perfect rocket launch.
As part of the program, this summer 65 middle school students from four White Earth schools came to the Twin Cities campus, where they toured the Bell Museum of Natural History and a number of high-tech labs. Some also participated in the Starbase program at the Minnesota Air National Guard base, which taught them about engineering star crafts for Mars exploration and other related science topics. Participants also built hovercrafts and rockets and tested their aeronautical-design skills with a launch.
Back at Circle of Life School on the reservation, the students designed bikes and other equipment to be used in a race at the end of the five-week program. The racers were given a list of tasks to be accomplished and beginning and ending points for each of the designated stops. Team members had to determine the order in which to finish the tasks and which team member would ride at what time.
“This is a systems-engineering optimization problem,” Moore explains. Practice scenarios leading up to the race helped students prepare for the big day.
Reach for the Sky will continue this fall as an after-school program with topics related to bridge design, tied to the Interstate 35W bridge collapse and rebuild, and to snow snakes—a traditional Native American child’s sled. During summer 2009, the program will continue with a focus on renewable energy including hydro and wind. Moore, Roehrig, and Carlson will also provide professional development to teachers in the participating White Earth schools.
“Developing these student’s STEM skills will have consequences beyond the classroom,” says Roehrig. “These efforts will help build a skilled work force prepared for tomorrow’s challenges.”
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PHOTOS: courtesy of Gillian Roehrig
Adapted from “Head of the Class,” by Andria Peters, originally published in Research 2007 by the Office of the Vice President for Research.