Adapting Biology Curriculum With Indigenous Pedagogies for Environmentalism and Social Justice: A Practitioner Inquiry

• In Event: (Re)Centering Our Collective Knowledge in a Tlahtocan Community Dialogue Circle: Indigenous Pedagogies From Central Texas

Abstract

Purpose
There has been an emphasis to increase the amount of time students are engaging in inquiry-based discussions and science practices in STEM classrooms (National Research Council, 2012). However, the amount of time minoritized students learn in context like scientists in the field, or engage in critical public discussions is very limited. A new science framework is needed in order for students to be adequately equipped to find solutions to science related issues such as the effects of global climate change. This self-study offers a conceptual framework based on experiences as a secondary science educator that critically examines the need to equitably merge Western science with Indigenous Ways of Knowing (IKS) while aligning to state standards, an approach sanctioned by UNESCO’s World Convention (Lafrenz Samuels & Platts, 2022). Desettling science expectations and addressing the nature-culture divide in education might increase student’s identification in STEM related fields (Bang et al., 2013; Bang and Marin, 2015). I aim to initiate a community dialogue with attendees who see value in Indigenizing science curriculum as we seek to advance anticolonial approaches to teaching and learning, revitalizing IKS where students are actively aware of relationships to the natural world and are creative participants (Cajete, 2000).

Perspectives/Modes Inquiry
After participating in an Indigenous pedagogy training, I initiated experimentation to desettle Western science ideologies during the 2022-2023 school year with 102 majority Latinx students guided by the following questions: How and where in the curriculum can we incorporate Indigenous methodologies to expose our cultural and valuable relationships to Mother Earth? Could Indigenous perspectives about environmental issues created by Western culture motivate students to work toward their solution? I share my experience of a collaboration with a farmer to co-design land-based culturally relevant 9th grade biology lessons with embedded situative perspectives contextualized in Texas. These efforts were to increase the amount of time students embody science practices the natural way to make sense of phenomena through relational epistemologies (Pugh et al., 2019) and engage in critical argumentation of real-world problems guided by sociopolitical perspectives (Madkins et al., 2020; Gutierrez, 2002).

Evidence/Arguments
Memo analysis and inspirational student testimonies helped me reflect on discussions, struggles, and future designs. Students demonstrated leveraging funds of knowledge to see value in nature. My students' state exam scores earned 2nd place in the whole charter school system suggesting that it is indeed possible to be defined “successful” by Western standards while Indigenizing curriculum through communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991).

Scholarly Significance
Our current education models lack equity in many ways, one being the lack of representation of other ways of learning; another is centering learning in real-world social and environmental justice problems that develop students’ sociopolitical consciousness to support identification with STEM related fields. Jacob (2017) highlights that U.S. educational goals are “value-neutral” which is far from Indigenous curriculum models. Designing community-based Indigenized curriculum models could afford opportunities for students to find evidence and reason to help advocate, or at the very least justify, the need for a more ecologically sustainable economy.

Author

• Leticia Garza, University of Texas at Austin