GA 4 Conference Discussion Questions

This report was prepared by Nievita Bueno Watts, Humboldt State University.

If anything in the world were possible, what would you dream of doing with a geoscience career?

  • Educate about bringing community and science together
  • Pass on information of traditional knowledge to students
  • Make a more inclusive space for Native students in Geoscience
  • Bridge the gap between western and traditional science
  • Create Tribal colleges in order to teach TEK  

What are your concerns related to geosciences?
How might ancestral knowledge be relevant to these concerns?

  • Concerned about the devastation occurring to our environments
  • The disconnect between the public and science needs to be mended
  • Want to use ancestral knowledge to mitigate problems
  • Do NOT want to use ancestral knowledge due to exploitation
  • Teach their communities how to live sustainably again

How would you like the scientific field to acknowledge, value, and reflect your whole self?

  • We want curriculum to have correct history of indigenous people
  • Teach that there are more than one way of understanding knowledge, not just the western way
  • Have traditional knowledge be acknowledged as science
  • Integrate science with culture when teaching
  • Acknowledge that identity plays a role in science

How can indigenous perspectives and values impact public opinion and policy related to science?
What individual and collective actions are necessary?

  • Need to have indigenous people working to create policies, and have a voice
  • Incorporate ourselves into places where we are not regularly seen
  • Teach indigenous students how to express themselves through culture and science
  • More communication between scientists, policy makers and the public

GA4 – More Information:

Agenda

Guest Speakers

Workshops

Posters

Field Trips

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