Digital Tools
The digital story ‘Australian Indigenous people as scientists’ covers a variety of Indigenous scientific areas including plants, astronomy, seasons and technology. The project has been created using Google Slides as students in NSW DET schools have access to G Suite for Education. Google Slides can integrate with other Google apps (such as Google forms and Jam) which can be used to assess student knowledge and assist collaboration. Hyperlinking sections increases student engagement and motivation. The use of Google Slides allows for the project to be published to the web for easy viewing. However, for use in school it would be shared on the teacher’s shared drive for access to all staff. Teachers could then share it on Google Classroom, enabling students to complete the activities on their own copy of the slide.
Design
The resource has been created to give teachers background knowledge and resources on Aboriginal knowledge and application of science. It is also designed as a stand-alone resource students in stage two upwards could use independently. The project also aims to increase a sense of belonging and pride for Aboriginal students and impart knowledge to other students.
Copyright regulations have been complied with and modelled by using images available under Creative Commons, sites requiring no attribution and the author’s own images and recordings. Videos have been referenced at the end of the project. Using images from these sources and embedding videos into the Slides (rather than download) ensures that the project can be shared digitally with students and they can make a copy of the work (Smartcopying, n.d.).
Students are easily distracted on the internet, many looking at off-task information (Wu & Xie, 2018, p.244), embedding videos decreases this risk. Slides also presents videos without any advertisements and allows the creator to choose portions of the video to show. Direct links to website pages have been used when required to also minimise student distractions.
There are optional links (shown by symbols) on the project so users can choose to get an overview of the story or delve into further enrichment resources and activities. The use of symbols also helps to orientate the user within the slides and provide choice of direction.
The aim of this project is to impart cultural understanding and make learning more authentic using local knowledge for that Country. This is achieved by using videos containing mostly Aboriginal people speaking of their culture.
Rationale
Indigenous peoples have been portrayed for a long time as ‘primitive’. However, this is not true, as vast amounts of scientific knowledge have been demonstrated throughout Indigenous cultures. Even when recorded, Indigenous knowledge has been discounted. For example, Blandowski’s work over 10 years (1849-1859) recording Aboriginal classification knowledge was never published (von Zinnenburg Carroll, 2014). This perpetual stereotyping of Aboriginal peoples has led to a lack of esteem in culture, particularly in science. Indeed, some Aboriginal people see science as not relating to them, with a belief that “Aboriginal people are not good at maths and science and all that” (Ball, 2015, p.14). It has also left a gap in Australian’s knowledge of it’s First People.
Digital story telling (DST) can be used for intercultural understanding by comparing cultures and experiences (Malita & Martin, 2010, p.3061) The aim of this digital story is to help students (both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal) to become more aware of how Aboriginals peoples use/used science in their culture. This will bring more of an understanding of Aboriginal culture to all students and may increase Indigenous student’s self-confidence and sense of belonging.
It also aims to assist teachers in integrating Aboriginal culture into their lessons. In 2018, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) introduced 95 new elaborations for Aboriginal scientific practices into the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, n.d). Teachers are time poor and often do not have time to search for additional resources, so this digital project aims to provide resources for teachers.
Teachers often feel they have little knowledge about Aboriginal people (Harrison & Greenfield, 2011, p.65). When non-Indigenous people teach about Aboriginal knowledge it is usually as a unit on certain aspects of Aboriginal knowledge and may unintentionally be stereotyped about particular styles or locations of knowledge (Harrison & Greenfield, 2011, p.70), for example boomerangs and the Northern Territory .
As Aboriginal culture is not heterogeneous, the resources have been drawn from a variety of Country groups to show diversity of practices. Even though the learning is not presented by an Indigenous person in local context, it is hoped it will provide an insight into the use of scientific knowledge of Indigenous peoples. The best way for students to learn is from an indigenous community member or elder about local country (Harrison & Sellwood, 2016, p.208). Providing learning in this way makes it authentic and meaningful as it is produced locally and relates context to place (Harrison & Greenfield, 2011, p.74). Therefore, it is best if the suggested activities can be adapted to include local Indigenous knowledge.
References:
ACARA (n.d). Australian Curriculum: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/cross-curriculum-priorities/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-histories-and-cultures/
Ball, R. (2015). STEM the gap: Science belongs to us mob too. AQ: Australian Quarterly, 86(1), 13-36. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/stable/24363666
Harrison, N., & Greenfield, M. (2011). Relationship to place: positioning Aboriginal knowledge and perspectives in classroom pedagogies. Critical Studies in Education, 52(1), 65–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2011.536513
Harrison, N. & Sellwood, J. (2016). Learning and teaching in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education. (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Smartcopying. (n.d). Flexible dealing.https://smartcopying.edu.au/information-sheets/schools/flexible-dealing
von Zinnenburg Carroll, Khadija. “What Would Indigenous Taxonomy Look Like? The Case of Blandowski’s Australia.” Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia (2014), no. 12. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. https://doi.org/10.5282/rcc/6292 .
Wu, J. & Xie, C. (2018). Using time pressure and note-taking to prevent digital distraction behavior and enhance online search performance: Perspectives from the load theory of attention and cognitive control. Computers in Human Behavior, 88, 244 – 254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.07.008
