Introducing Indigenous knowledge into the classroom

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM/social science clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 Geography, Anthropology and PSHE and is also internationally relevant.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• What is anthropology? What can we learn from Indigenous knowledge? This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Darren Ranco from the University of Maine in the USA. Darren is an anthropologist and a citizen of the Penobscot Nation, a sovereign people in the Wabanaki Confederacy of Tribes. Darren is investigating ways to attract more Indigenous students into STEM – a sector that would benefit hugely from the input of Indigenous knowledge.

• This resource also contains an interview with Darren about his career path. If your students (or you) have questions for Darren, you/they can send them to him online. All you need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Darren will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Darren’s research and challenges them to think about the relevance of Indigenous science in the science curriculum.

• The PPT reiterates the key points in the article and includes separate Bloom’s Taxonomy talking points.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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