Final Project: How can digital resources and effective teaching methods be used to integrate Alaska Native ways of knowing and Western scientific meth

My original idea was to make mini lessons of the individual topics we have studied in this course to present to my students to study and build upon. I realized that in reality that would be easy for me to do but not necessarily easy to fit in with the other science projects we are required to learn about in a year. We do cover Alaska ecology in the fall and over the summer I am planning to sit down with my books and fit into my lessons, in a practical, well thought out way the many things I have learned in this course. Some of the TD videos are perfect for presenting topics we need to cover. I have already started to make a list of topics and peruse the TD library to see what is available to use.

One of the reasons I am not choosing to do this now is our language issue. We are a Yupik immersion school. Our first three grades are taught in Yupik. The students transition in the third grade. Fourth grade is only their second year of English instruction. We have a HUGE issue with vocabulary. Many of my students are struggling to read on a third grade level. They are wonderfully bright kids and they work super hard. Many “grade-level” resources are a huge challenge for us to read/watch and get comprehension out of without a lot of prep work and background.

We also have the issue that science is not taught very much at the lower grades. The main focus in the classroom is language. Even in my classroom social studies and science get pushed to the back burner if we are struggling with a language issue. I try hard not to let this happen but sometimes it is impossible to avoid. They do have basic science knowledge but there are many holes. My students know that the Earth goes around the sun but they do not realize how that helps to make our climate what it is. This is when I realized that I would have to do a lot of prep work for my students. I found the TD video about the orbit and rotation of the earth and how that makes our seasons. I was getting excited because I remembered when I was in third grade we got to “play” with flashlights and balls and I started to think of other fun experiments (some mentioned in the class are great!) to help teach the some of the concepts. Then, when I was watching it I realized some of the words used would have to be introduced and taught as vocabulary before hand.

Now to my project:
I really wanted something that I could incorporate into this school year. We are going to try to have our culture week later this month. The week before or the week after would be a good time to tie in some of my own lesson plans (the Culture Week is organized by our Yupik staff and the village. The white staff are turned into support only—as it should be)
The best thing about technology for our students is it allows them to meet Elders that otherwise they would never know and to hear their stories and knowledge. My students Yupik teacher has several interviews on tape of Elders that are no longer living. She shows these clips to her students and they gain knowledge that they would not have otherwise. This gave me the idea. This method is one my students can also employ for them selves. They have a chance to film the Elders that they know and to preserve that information for future generations before it is lost. By filming the Elders, the students create their own digital resource that can be used again and again.

This is also a project that I would need to coordinate with the students’ Yupik teacher. Many of the older Elders speak little English. If a student would interview one of these Elders I would need to have the Yupik teacher or an aid help me to view and grade these projects.

Resources and Materials:
A selection of Yupik storybooks from the LAMS library (both in English and Yupik)
A selection of Yupik storybooks from the district Media Center (both in English and Yupik)
School cameras (maybe use the HS students to operate the cameras while the kids interview?)
Blank dvds/flashdrives

Questions:

What traditional stories do you know? What is your favorite? Who told you this story? Why do you think this story was told to you? What did you learn from this story? Why do you think it is important to know? How did this story help your forebears survive?

Steps:

1. Students, in groups of 2-3, will brain storm a list of traditional stories that have been told to them or they have read.
2. Students will make list of questions about the story (such as those listed above). They would then try to answer their own questions on paper.
3. Students will find an Elder they can record telling the story.
4. The students would then ask the Elder the questions they had about the story.
5. Students would then record themselves while they compare and contrast their answers with those of the Elder.

Conclusion:

The conclusion of the project would be to hold a film festival to view the finished projects. Elders, parents and community would be invited.

Extension:

Hopefully I will be able to lead a few of the groups to certain stories I have in mind. These stories I can use as introductions to my units next year when I teach AK ecology. This will be a great resource to use with my future classes that will remain relevant. It will help me tie together the traditional Native Ways with the Western science and at the same time make science fun for my students.