Faculty Mentor: Tabitha Beneny (Political Science, University of Utah)

Fort Washakie School on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming contains three rural schools with a Native American population of 91%. Fort Washakie High School faces chronic academic underperformance, including high absenteeism and a graduation rate of around 34.8%, which falls below both the national average for Native American populations (65%) and Americans more generally (86%). To address these issues, we developed a specialized STEM curriculum that integrates Place-Based Education (PBE) that uses local attributes, such as climate, ecology, culture, and history, to enhance student engagement and learning outcomes.

The newly developed curriculum is designed to foster a sense of belonging and a deeper connection to science among students at Fort Washakie Schools. A total of three STEM modules that incorporated the PBE approach were developed. Each set of curricula was created to align with the Utah Science with Engineering Education (SEEd) standards to ensure the curriculum can be permanently integrated into the courses at Fort Washakie School. The STEM topics covered by this curriculum include Air Quality, Renewable Energy, and Mental Health. Lecture slides, teaching notes, and companion guides were made for each topic. This curriculum will now be vetted by educational experts and incorporated with Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) from local community members and historical archives.

Place-based education has been shown to significantly improve educational outcomes by enhancing community engagement, bolstering critical problem-solving skills, increasing retention rates in higher education, and fostering a strong sense of agency among students (Cooley, 2022; Gallay et al., 2022). By focusing on locally relevant elements, this curriculum not only teaches STEM concepts but also allows for appreciation for the students’ cultural and ecological environment. The curriculum development process involved extensive research, utilizing research produced by University of Utah researchers, local news sources, federal and local data, policy proposals, institutional reports, and more to identify the topics and elements that were important and relevant to the community. We then integrated place-based factors and research findings produced locally; such as local plants, industries, resources, projects, environmental data, and other community elements.

In conclusion, the academic disparities at Fort Washakie Schools highlight the need for systemic changes in teaching methods and classroom content to improve STEM education outcomes. The dominant culture of STEM curriculum in the United States presents challenges to creating student interest in STEM, particularly in Native American communities (Cooley, 2022). This project aims to create a sense of belonging and connection to science and STEM fields among students at Fort Washakie Schools, which is critical for pursuing careers in these areas. PBE may improve STEM education approaches for minoritized youth by better communicating environmental challenges, building resilience, and increasing agency to address these challenges (Gallay et al., 2022). This approach to STEM curriculum can be replicated anywhere, because PBE leverages the power of place to personalize the learning experience. By looking to local resources and using them as an opportunity to enhance learning, PBE leverages local research, heritage, cultures, and landscapes. In turn, this approach can provide an equitable learning environment and foster a sense of agency among students from all backgrounds. (Vander Ark et al., 2020)

Bibliography

Cooley, T. C. (2022). Place-Based Education as Liberatory Praxis. The Vermont Connection, 43(1). https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/tvc/vol43/iss1/9 Gallay, E., Furlan

Brighente, M., Flanagan, C., & Lowenstein, E. (2022). Place-based civic science-collective environmental action and solidarity for eco-resilience. Child and adolescent mental health, 27(1), 39–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/camh.12537

Semken, S., Ward, E. G., Moosavi, S., & Chinn, P. W. U. (2017). Place-Based Education in Geoscience: Theory, Research, Practice, and Assessment. Journal of Geoscience Education, 65(4), 542–562. https://doi.org/10.5408/17-276.1

Vander Ark, T., Liebtag, E., McClennen, N. (2020). The Power of Place: Authentic Learning through Place-Based Education. ASCD.