Cultural heritage is key to STEAM learning success for Indigenous students
Camp Kikandaaswiwin Mookiisin is part of the Indigenous STEAM pathways program at Canadore College. supplied
Indigenous learners are under-represented in STEAM educational programs and careers
Proficiency in a combination of science, technology, engineering, the arts and math (STEAM) subjects is often seen as the key to a successful career. However, many STEAM programs provide an approach that may disadvantage students from different backgrounds. In Canada, that often tends to be Indigenous students who, research shows, benefit from a more culturally appropriate approach to STEAM learning.
“
Our program celebrates Indigenous STEAM knowledge and creates an environment where students can see themselves in STEAM pathways and can also connect with industry leaders and national STEAM opportunities through Actua, one of our main funders and partners. ”
In fact, research published by the Conference Board of Canada (CBoC) in December 2020 found that when educators use a culturally responsive curriculum, Indigenous students are more engaged and perform better.
“Indigenous people have had their own ways of passing on knowledge for millennia,” according to CBoC’s report Indigenous STEM Access Programs: Leading Post-Secondary Inclusion. “For instance, where Western science takes a quantitative, compartmentalized approach to understanding nature, Indigenous science leans toward a more qualitative, interrelated approach. Indigenous science also has distinct views about interconnectedness, relationship to space and time, structural authority, and ways of knowing and learning.”
The findings came as no surprise to North Bay’s Canadore College, whose Kikandaaswiwin Mookiisin program offered through the School of Indigenous Studies and the First Peoples’ Centre provides Indigenous students with a land-based experiential learning program grounded in Indigenous educational practices and draws on the rich languages, histories and cultural traditions of Indigenous peoples.
The Kikandaaswiwin Mookiisin is an Indigenous STEAM pathways program comprised of mentorship and instructor training opportunities, classroom workshops and curricula delivered by Indigenous STEAM instructors, educator training and for-credit land camp experiences for both secondary and post-secondary Indigenous learners.
Patty Chabbert, business and Indigenous relations manager at Canadore’s First Peoples’ Centre, says, “Our program celebrates Indigenous STEAM knowledge and creates an environment where students can see themselves in STEAM pathways and can also connect with industry leaders and national STEAM opportunities through Actua, one of our main funders and partners.”
Ms. Chabbert says Indigenous learners are under-represented in STEAM educational programs and careers. Structuring the Kikandaaswiwin Mookiisin as a pathways program ensures learners have multiple entry points into STEAM.
CBoC research has shown that while Indigenous people make up four per cent of adults in Canada, less than two per cent of people working in STEM occupations are Indigenous.
Actua, Canada’s largest STEM youth outreach network, consists of 41 university- and college-based members across Canada. Four years ago, Actua developed and launched Indigenous Youth in STEM (InSTEM), a high school credit Indigenous land-based STEM camp program.
Doug Dokis, director of the InSTEM program, says Actua’s primary focus as Kikandaaswiwin Mookiisin’s principal partner is ensuring Indigenous youth recognize that Indigenous knowledge of the land is STEAM, and getting STEAM learning to students early will ensure they are confident in both their cultural identity and STEAM learning experiences.
“It’s really about creating opportunities for Indigenous youth that build confidence through culturally relevant programming that ultimately contributes to credit accumulation and improved graduation rates in school overall,” he says. “Many of them go on to study in STEM-related programs such as environmental sciences where there are opportunities for them to support their communities.
Dakota Heon, Indigenous STEAM lead at Canadore’s First Peoples’ Centre, says experiencing, learning and working in the field of Indigenous STEAM has been an eye-opener.
Mr. Heon says Kikandaaswiwin Mookiisin provides Indigenous students with an opportunity to see STEAM in a different light.
“Previously, they may have viewed STEAM as a predominantly Western field, but after Kikandaaswiwin Mookiisin, Indigenous students can see themselves, their culture and other people like them in that field. They don’t have to leave their identity or culture at the door and instead can bring those aspects with them, providing an additional skill set,” he says.
Canadore College president and CEO George Burton says the college recognizes Indigenous education as a priority and is accountable to the Indigenous communities it serves in support of self-determination through education and training.
“What makes the Kikandaaswiwin Mookiisin program unique is that it combines instruction in science, technology, engineering, arts and math with modern technologies and Indigenous cultural practices and values,” he says. “The combination of elements makes the program relevant to the students and their communities, which leads to student success.”
For more stories from this feature, visit globeandmail.com