ESTABLISHING A SUSTAINABLE AND CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE GEOSCIENCE FIELD COURSE FOR NATIVE AMERICAN YOUTH

Sharing the Land (StL) has provided geoscientific expertise to BRIDGE’s InterTribal Youth (ITY) for over a decade, exposing young Native American learners to physical Earth science; water and land resource management; and the connection between natural resources and tribal sovereignty. The goal of the program is to grow earth science expertise within tribal communities toward the goal of scientific self-sufficiency and sovereignty in resource management. Together, this collaboration has shown to be effective in transforming the youths’ conceptions of geoscience. After participating in the program, youth are more likely to indicate that science is a part of a tribe’s cultural assets. Moreover, youth report positive effects on their self-confidence and likelihood to attend college (Unsworth, Riggs and Chavez, 2012).

Through further evaluation, these shifts were attributed to the strong sense of community built in the culturally-based programming. Youth describe a sense of empowerment and pride related to family-like relationships cultivated during ITY and StL. These themes, combined with positive nature experiences, are interrelated to the overall positive program experience. This is describes foundational experience of the program.

Building from this foundation, Sharing the Land’s science activities are experiential and highly related to the positive experiences with nature participants report. Youth are able to approach science, in the context of nature, from the safe space created as the program foundation. Moreover, once youth have constructed a conception of program-science as occurring in nature, they are able to identify all science that is beyond the program as nature.

For the first time in 2014, InterTribal youth operated without contribution from Sharing the Land as our NSF OEDG funding came to a close. The collaborations built across nations and cultures have endured as a stand-alone program, and the goal of long-term sustainability appears to have been reached. ITY has continued to develop and has solicited local geoscience expertise, increased the length of its programming and continued to support Native American youth. The program has further developed already established relationships with local colleges and tribes in Southern California to find new contributors and funding sources.