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: