Integrating Environmental Data Systems and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK): A Framework For (Re)Connecting Indigenous Youth to Traditional Foods and Modern Growing Practices

Due to geographic barriers and higher rates of poverty, Indigenous youth living in rural communities have significantly fewer opportunities to engage in high-quality STEM experiences inside and outside of school. Concurrently, schools in both rural and urban settings approach STEM education from a western science perspective, thus limiting opportunities for youth to integrate Indigenous ways of knowing in STEM classrooms. The Intellectual Merit of this Integrating Research and Practice project lies in its aim to co-create a STEM-based informal learning framework that ties together Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) with agroecology. Agroecology integrates ecological, economic, and social perspectives on food systems, and is focused on improving agricultural sustainability through practices including intercropping, organic farming, and soil conservation, all of which are founded in Indigenous agriculture methods. The project will investigate the degree to which the framework supports youth and communities reconnecting with traditional foods and growing practices and promotes their knowledge of sustainability. Food insecurity is experienced by 25% of Native Americans, so by working with Indigenous youth and their communities to rediscover and adopt sustainable agroecology practices this project offers the promise of greater food sovereignty, which can be transformative for Indigenous communities. The learning framework developed and tested by this project could be reused and revised by other researchers and Indigenous communities to engage youth in STEM learning experiences that combine TEK with technology and data science in the service of improving local sustainable food production in both rural and urban settings.

This project will iteratively develop an agroecology learning experience at teaching farms for one hundred and twenty Indigenous youth aged 10-18 years, accompanied by fifteen of their community elders, by working with two rural Navajo communities in Arizona and an urban intertribal community in Nebraska. Youth will create food plots with traditional foods and growing practices with the augmentation of networked environmental data sensors (for soil nutrients, light, temperature, relative humidity, and soil moisture) and programmable mechanical systems. In response to community needs and informed by the oral teachings of elders, the youth will design their own agroecology research projects, sharing data-driven growing practices with their communities and upholding traditional food sharing practices.

By combining Indigenous research methodologies and community-based design research, the project will address the following research questions: (1) How and in what ways does the preliminary framework support and encourage youth and communities to reconnect with traditional foods and growing practices? (2) To what extent does the integration of TEK and western science promote youth knowledge of sustainability and sovereignty in food production?

Evidence will be collected via multiple avenues: interviews, talking circles, documentation of co-design meetings, observations, and youth and community-produced artifacts.