INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES IN THE ES CLASSROOM: FROM CLIMATE CHANGE TO RIVER MANAGEMENT

We strive to incorporate diverse perspectives, including Indigenous voices in Environmental Studies (ES) courses. We provide examples from two sophomore-level required courses for the ES major, Earth System Science and Environmental Humanities. Two examples from Earth System Science focus on topics of climate change and sea level rise. Students read the essay “Climate Change: An Unprecedentedly Old Catastrophe” by Dr. Kyle Powys Whyte (Potawotomi). This essay highlights that climate change is not a new threat to Indigenous peoples, as they were forced to locally experience climate change as colonists exploited and claimed their homelands. Potawatomi people were forced to moved from the Great Lakes region to the Great Plains in the 19^th century. Bringing Indigenous perspectives into the classroom reminds us of the disproportionate impacts of environmental injustices and reframes the narrative of climate change not as a new global issue, but one that is old with ongoing repercussions. A second example uses an article by Somini Sengupta and Shola Lawal that explores successful sea level rise mitigation strategies used by the Shinnecock Indians on Long Island and compares them with less successful strategies, such as seawalls used in the primarily white Southhampton area. In Environmental Humanities, early in the semester students are exposed to ideas of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge (IEK) as a complement to Western modes of scientific inquiry through readings in Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s (Potawotomi) Braiding Sweetgrass (2013). Bringing IEK into the classroom then serves as a foundation for a case study focused on the Klamath River Basin, where local tribes (Yaruk, Karuk and Hoopa) are actively involved in addressing colonial histories of water use and re-orienting river management practices. The key take home of bringing Indigenous perspectives into the classroom is threefold. 1) Highlight that Indigenous peoples face environmental injustices through systemic racism, 2) Foreground Indigenous peoples’ active roles in, and the challenges of countering these injustices, and 3) Showcase the broader value of Indigenous knowledge systems to addressing environmental problems.