Native American Perspectives in Science Teaching

Walter S. Smith

University of Akron

At the mouth of New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, three hours northwest of Albuquerque by car, stands Fajada Butte, the source of a powerful observational astronomy teaching unit. More importantly, however, Fajada also informs students about historical Native American's profound understanding of the natural world and simultaneously demonstrates how many of the world's indigenous people view the world. That worldview contrasts sharply with several facets of our western scientific tradition; but this alternative way of conceptualizing the world is becoming increasingly more prominent in contemporary scientific thought (Suzuki and Knudtson, 1992).

Chacoan Astronomy: High up on Fajada Butte, the eleventh century Anasazi, ancestors of today's Pueblo people, constructed the world's only known archeological site that marks both the high and low points of not only the Sun's but also the Moon's orbits (Solstice Project, 1983). Three three meter tall slabs that lean against the side of Fajada Butte near its crest were used by the Anasazi as an unobtrusive "observatory," something quite undistinguished from its surroundings. At noon on summer solstice, when the Sun is moving essentially parallel to the ground, light shining through the crack between the first and second rocks produces a dagger-like pattern that travels perpendicular to the Sun's path and pierces a serpent carved behind the leaning rocks by the Anasazi. As summer progresses to autumn and the Sun moves lower in the sky, a second dagger appears behind the crack between the second and third leaning rocks. At the autumnal equinox (and later at the vernal equinox), the second dagger pierces a second, smaller Anasazi-carved serpent; and at winter solstice the two daggers are tangential to the larger serpent. At summer solstice the serpent is bisected by light, whereas at winter solstice the serpent is held devoid of light. Moreover, the leading edge of the first rock casts a shadow across half of the serpent when the Moon rises at its lowest point in its nineteen year cycle; and at the Moon's highest rising point, its shadow is tangential to the serpent.

In the mode of the ancient Anasazi astronomers, students can be asked over a three month period to keep track of the Moon's position and shape and the time of each observation. Data should be collected at least weekly, but more frequent observations are preferable. Students should collaborate to share sightings, for depending on cloud cover and the students' opportunity to see the sky, finding the Moon can be one of the greater challenges of this activity. If the data are recorded on note cards, then students can spread the cards on their desks to allow them to look for patterns in their own observations and to compare their observations with those of others.

Students can figure out that the Moon does not stand still in one place or retain the same shape and that these changes occur in a regular pattern. The Moon's path mimics that of the Sun, appearing to move in a westerly direction from hour to hour. However, unlike the Sun, the Moon is not in the same position from day to day; it moves in an easterly direction over this longer time frame. There is a relationship between the shape of the Moon and the Moon's position relative to the Sun. The side of the Moon facing the Sun is illuminated. Depending on how much of that illuminated side we see, we see everything from a thin crescent to a full Moon. Some students are surprised that the Moon can be viewed in the daytime. And the observations and conclusions go on and on.

But the point is that like Native Americans, these students are closely observing -- possibly for the first time -- a natural phenomenon and acquiring a feeling for the celestial bodies somewhat akin to Native American's feeling for nature. Given more time to repeatedly observe the Moon, the feeling of kinship becomes stronger. In a similar vein, Evelyn Fox Keller (1983) spoke of "a feeling for the organism" when describing Barbara McClintock's being at one with corn, the organism from which she learned about "jumping genes," for which she received a Nobel Prize.

Consistent with contemporary thinking about students' collecting and interpreting data and making connections between prior existing thought and new ideas (National Research Council, 1996), this astronomy unit challenges students' thinking. At the middle level students can collect their observations in a rough, qualitative style, using words like "It was a half Moon in the southern sky about 45º above the horizon at 10 pm," but at higher grade levels the observations can become more precise and complex. Regardless of the students' level of sophistication, however, they grow to appreciate the time, effort, and thought necessary to "figure out how the world works."

Once students have gained that appreciation, it is time for a crucial culminating activity that ties astronomy to Native American thought. Have students view Sundagger, a 28 minute video (Solstice Project, 1983), that tells the story of the Chacoan Fajada Butte observatory from the perspective of Anna Sofaer, a photographer-scientist who has unraveled many of the observatory's secrets. After having tried to figure out for themselves what the Moon is doing and struggled in the process, students almost unfailingly gain from the video a heightened respect for native people who all too frequently are thought of as less intelligent than western thinkers.

America's first people were not just astronomers, although their astronomical prowess is evidenced in their calendars' greater precision than anything available in Europe in 1492. Crops such as corn with Native American roots represent over sixty percent of the world's current agricultural output; and medicines such as quinine contribute to today's medicinal cornucopia (Weatherford, 1988). These and additional ideas are found in teaching resources that weave insights about Native Americans into science teaching.

Teaching Resources

Caduto, Michael J. and Bruchac, Joseph. Keepers of the Earth (1988) and Keepers of the Animals (1992), both published by Fulcrum, Golden, CO. Native American stories intertwined with related science teaching ideas.

Hirschfelder, Arlene and Kreipe de Montaño, Martha (1993). The Native American Almanac: Portrait of Native America Today. New York: Prentice Hall. A rich source of statistics about contemporary Native Americans.

Map of American Indian History (1994) is available from Russell Publications; 9027 North Cobre Dr., Phoenix, AZ 85028-5317; russell@indiandata.com; 1-800/835-7220. $10 plus $4 postage. Also, American Indian Facts of Life: A Profile of Today's Tribes and Reservations (no date) is available from the same source. $10 plus $3 postage.

The Sundagger video is available from Southwest Parks and Monument Association, Attn: Nelda, P. O. Box 2173, Globe, AZ 85502; 520/425-8184. $29.95 plus $4 postage.

Taking Traditions to Tomorrow, a 27 minute videotape (1988), is available from American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), 5661 Airport Blvd., Bolder, CO 80301-2339; 303/939-0023. $20 plus $5 for handling. Designed initially for a Native American student audience, this video does much to dispel the notion that Indian people lived long ago -- as in cowboy and Indian stories -- but are not around today.

Native American and Western Worldviews: Juxtaposed against the Anasazi's simple, but astonishingly sophisticated observatory, the video, "A Private Universe" (1989), dramatically illustrates that many high school students as well as Harvard University graduates and faculty only weakly understand causes of seasonal weather changes, even though the subject is included somewhere in most schools' science curricula. The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) shows that many American students, and indeed students around the world, have not adequately mastered fundamental science concepts (U. S. Department of Education, 1996).

Lamentable as this lack of understanding may be, even those students who have mastered the science called for in current standards (National Research Council, 1996) tend to possess a powerful, but narrow view of the world. They see the world through western eyes. The world is explained by cause and effect. Humans oppose and have command over nature, and so forth.

However, other worldviews, notably worldviews shared by many of the world's indigenous people, including America's first people, are both available and enrich those who see the world through these alternative eyes. Suzuki and Knudtson (1992) have described those alternative views and asserted that western science is evolving new ways of looking at the world that approach "the wisdom of the elders" of the world's indigenous people. For example, despite western science's penchant for studying pieces rather than the whole, brain researchers acknowledge that learning more and more about the brain does not necessarily lead to knowledge of the mind. On this point Suzuki and Knudtson (1992, page 79) quoted Albert Einstein who, when asked whether everything could be known scientifically, replied, "Yes, it would be possible, but it would make no sense. It would be description without meaning -- as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure."

Epistemology: Unlike the Anasazi mind which accepted rather than explained, to the western mind, all things are potentially knowable in terms of cause and effect. Possibly we do not know the answer today; but the mystery is only temporary, for all things can be known. At an accelerating rate we divide the world into smaller and smaller pieces so we can study and master the subdivided parts. Thus, people become experts in the mitochondria of jellyfish and the collegiate joke that PhD recipients know more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing becomes a truism.

How Humans Learn about the World:

Worldviews of Indigenous versus Western Peoples

Indigenous: Know the Earth in its totality as a whole. Versus Western: Know the Earth by subdividing it and studying its parts.

Indigenous: Know the Earth by careful observation without intervening. Versus Western: Know the Earth by manipulating it to see what effect the manipulation has.

Indigenous: Knowing the Earth leads to personal knowledge. Two people may have different views of the truth, and each is correct. Conflicting data are accepted and appreciated as a mystery. Versus Western: Knowing the Earth leads to universal, eternal verities. Conflicting data are viewed either as anomalies and ignored or as necessary to be reconciled with one's prior understanding.

Reflecting the perceived value of this methodology, elementary and high school students are taught "the scientific method," frequently as the first lesson in a science course. Questions are posed in terms of independent and dependent variables; the world is manipulated so that relationships between the values of the two or more variables can be collected and transformed into means, standard deviations, Chi-squares, and so forth. From the original data and subsequent transformations of the data, patterns can be discerned and the world better understood because we have observed the results of our manipulations. As a result of knowing the world in cause-effect terms, the western mind exhibits another of its worldviews, i.e., in the relationship between humans and the rest of the world, humans by right hold the upper hand.

Human/Nature Relationship: In the mid-1850's the Suquamish chief, Seattle, in America's northwest spoke words recorded by Dr. Henry A. Smith and later revised to remain true to Chief Seattle's original sentiments but to sound authentic to late twentieth century listeners: "This we know: All things are connected like the blood that unites us. We did not weave the web of life, we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves (Jeffers, 1991)." Those few, simple words and the remainder of Seattle's short speech point to essential differences in worldviews of western versus indigenous people. To the western mind, nature is wild; it is something to be tamed. Western people may be on the land, but not part of the land. People are not woven into the fabric of the nature. Instead, humans stand above and have been given dominion over the rest of nature so as to improve nature in the service of humankind.

Relationship of Humans and Nature:

Worldviews of Indigenous versus Western Peoples

Indigenous: People are part of nature, not separate from it. People are the youngest animal and can learn from the other animals. Versus Western: People are separate from and dominate nature. People have the right to use nature. At best, people should manage nature to their own benefit.

Indigenous: All parts of nature are interrelated. The Earth is alive with all of our parts made of the same fabric. Versus Western: Nature is a collection of essentially independent parts, a dead Earth with plants and animals and (separate) humans distinct from the Earth.

Indigenous: Routinely honor nature. Nature, daily life and religion are seamless. Versus Western: Honor nature when convenient (e.g., on Earth Day). Intertwining of nature and religion is viewed pejoratively as animism or anthropomorphism.

For over twenty-five years I've asked students to list ten different kinds of animals. Despite our egocentrism, I have yet to find the first person to include humans on the list. We do not think that way. A suburban ninth grader's authentic surprise when she learned that carrots are roots speaks eloquently to the same issue. Based on her experience, she knew that carrots are packaged in plastic bags and found at the super market along with dozens of additional items divorced from their natural sources. She knew virtually nothing of the carrots' or her other foods' sources.

Conclusion: Native Americans are not the only people to understand the seamless interrelatedness of people and other parts of nature. Consistent with Chief Seattle's sentiments, Dr. Seuss's Lorax emphatically spoke for the Truffula Trees and its friends; but the busy Once-ler (human) loudly warned the Lorax to shut up, for Once-ler was too busy making Thneeds and inventing Super-Axe-Hackers to cut more Truffula Trees to make more Thneeds (Geisel, 1971). From two different ethnicities and times, Dr. Seuss and Chief Seattle were conceptual brothers; and adolescents can gain much from a frank and full discussion of the simple elegance of their words.

References

Geisel, Theodor Seuss (1971). The Lorax. New York: Random House.

Jeffers, Susan (1991). Brother Eagle, Sister Sky. New York: Dial Books.

Keller, Evelyn Fox (1983). A Feeling for the Organism. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.

Locke, Raymond Friday (1986). The Book of the Navajo 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Holloway House.

National Research Council (1996). National Science Education Standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Science Media Group of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Matthew Schneps, Producer (1989). A Private Universe. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Solstice Project (1983). Sundagger. Oley, PA: Bullfrog Films.

Suzuki, David and Knudtson, Peter (1992). Wisdom of the Elders. New York: Bantam Books.

U. S. Department of Education (1996). Pursuing Excellence: A Study of U. S. Eighth-Grade Mathematics and Science Teaching, Learning, Curriculum, and Achievement in International Context. Washington, D. C.: author.

Weatherford, Jack (1988). Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World. New York: Crown Publishers.

Williamson, Ray A. (1984). Living the Sky: The Cosmos of the American Indian. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.