- Start Early:
- Early start in elementary education
- Grow our students—hands-on experiences, summer and other informal learning experiences
- Increased participation of Native students in science fairs; Native science fairs
- AISES chapters in high schools and middle schools can help students learn to like and understand science
- Invest in better schools, programs, and teachers
- Promote students with potential
- Encourage traditional ecological knowledge
- Incorporate Elders
- More school programs and after-school programs
- Encourage volunteerism
- Buy in to the importance of environmental science
- Summer programs
- One-on-one outreach to students
- Explain to students why they are well suited to this field
- Explain to Native students why their background makes them natural geoscientists
- Better communication about the geosciences
- Explain how geosciences can help their community
- Challenge students: Here is the problem; here is how you can work on it
- Math: visual learning, but important not to separate out some students; make math relevant to Native students (use real-life examples, i.e.—basket weaving, beading
- Teach math in context, applied math
- Professional development for teachers
- Break stereotypes of learners
- Relevance:
- Show relevance of the careers (how can I use this?)
- What benefits can the student find in this study to their lives?
- Show how the education is connected to protection and sustainable management of resources (Intro to Sustainable Development class) Make math relevant to something besides “just math”
- Create more volunteer opportunities in the sciences in the community
- Educate everyone in the community
- Incorporate tradition
- Be open and honest
- Need to inspire students
- Incorporate an experiential component
- Presentation of issues regarding natural resources as impacting future generations
- Need to recognize that Native students are diverse by geography and level of preparation
- Climate change issues are urgent and students want to do something about these issues
- Science needs to be presented as interesting, not a dead-end job, good career mobility
- Travel—chance to learn and experience other cultures
- Lab work/field trips excite students
- Allow students to work in two paths (Native and mainstream science) — is this getting better? You see some who are blending both
- Role Models:
- Get graduate-school-level Native American teachers to teach at tribal colleges or tribal schools (role models)
- Draw on local expertise
- Find mentors for kids
- Peer-mentoring
- Conversation before leaving safe place
- Support at the College level
- Distance Learning
- Do a better job of advertising opportunities and exploring careers
- Need to have a place online to house all the opportunities, resources, and scholarships related to geosciences
- agiweb.org
- Serc.carleton.edu
- Indigenousmapping.net
- Geoscience Alliance website – what are the possibilities?
- Get students connected on campus
- Better advising so students aren’t told the wrong thing, which can make their academic programs longer and more expensive
- Student service learning: students play a role in going back to their tribes to publicize their experiences, opportunities for other students, peer mentoring
- Good mentors; family atmosphere
- Need more job opportunities
- Place-based Education (at all levels, K-12 and beyond)
- When teaching Native students, place is foremost/fundamental
- Don’t limit “place” (i.e., to the reservation) Think where Native peoples are now and where they have been in the past, connect to history
- Look at other successful models
- Find ways to help students make a connection to their place
- Encourage them to look
- Connect students to science and scientists on their reservation
- DNR/resource management on reservation
- Close textbook and go out into the community to find your problems and issues, and your answers
- Greater relevance for students
- Hands-on – students find this important and valuable
- Field studies don’t show the “ideal” situation that is often in textbooks, but teach the full complexity
- A return to the old way is important to many—so we need to have teaching support for Native concerns (example: GEMscholars learned the Native community approach and knowledge about plants, a two-way exchange of knowledge
- Good programs:
- Wells Technology—example of a successful business in Bemidji, MN. Give tours to students, apprenticeships.
- NSF Math and Science Partnerships
- GEAR UP
- Research Experiences for Undergraduates