Recipient Organization
NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
FLAGSTAFF,AZ 86011
Performing Department
School of Forestry
Non Technical Summary
: The proposed program will provide immersive professional development opportunities for K-12 teachers in Native-serving schools to develop culturally responsive curriculum units in the food, agricultural, natural resources, and human (FANH) sciences. We will be utilizing the proven best practices of professional development programs for teachers and structure of the Institute for Native-serving Educators (INE), which is a partnership between Northern Arizona University and Native-serving K-12 teachers in the southwestern United States. The model developed here is self-sustaining as it builds upon a successful national educational model already in place in Navajo-serving schools and will be institutionally maintained beyond the life of this grant. We will offer four year-long seminars for the topics chosen by K-12 teachers. Forests, natural resources, and climate change were among the top topical areas that previous INE teachers identified. Teachers will develop curricular materials through multi-grade and cross-content-area collaborative groups (Teacher Fellow cohort), which will be led by university faculty, working professionals, and tribal elders. We will ensure immersive learning experiences for K-12 teachers in INE each year through at least three in-person full-day workshops, one 10-day residential program on the NAU campus during the summer, and the end of year Annual Conference. The expected outcomes among K-12 teachers are higher morale, greater collegiality and collaboration among teachers, improved content knowledge and instruction, greater use of culturally responsive curricular materials, increased teacher retention and performance - all of which will lead to higher student achievements.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The proposed program will provide immersive professional development opportunities for K-12 teachers in Native-serving schools to develop culturally responsive curriculum units in the food, agricultural, natural resources, and human (FANH) sciences. The near-term programming will focus on forests, natural resources, and environment, which can be expanded to other areas in FANH after the project's first two years. Increasing agricultural literacy among Native-serving K-12 teachers and Indigenous students supports all AFRI Farm Bill Priority areas, but the proposed program is particularly relevant to the area of "Bioenergy, natural resources, and environment." The target participants are K-12 teachers in Native-serving schools in the Southwestern United States (Figure 1). The professional development model developed here is self-sustaining as it builds upon a successful national educational model already in place in Navajo-serving schools and will be institutionally maintained beyond the life of this grant. Specific objectives are to:1) develop culturally responsive and academically rigorous FANH curricular materials through multi-grade and cross-content-area collaboration among Native-serving K-12 teachers, university faculty, and working professionals;2) build teacher-developed instructional units, including teaching strategies for combining in-person and online activities, and share innovative instructional practices among teachers in Native-serving schools;3) leverage existing knowledge among Indigenous youth, teachers, elders, and communities to empower teacher growth and foster the mutually beneficial exchange of cultural and content knowledge among partners;4) enhance and expand culturally responsive FANH curriculum offered in Native-serving schools throughout the Southwestern U.S. and beyond.
Project Methods
The teacher-driven professional development approach focuses on developing long-term, active teaching and learning strategies to deliver culturally responsive content knowledge aligned to local and state standards. Teachers will be drawn from the school districts within the existing DINÉ partnership in years 1 and 2, and we will expand the partnerships to other tribal communities in years 3 and 4 (Figure 1). Teacher Fellows participate in a seminar cohort, read and learn about the topic in partnership with the faculty member, and ultimately develop a personalized curriculum unit that they use in their own classroom. The curriculum units are aligned to local, state, and tribal standards. The curriculum units will be preserved and made accessible through INE website and NAU's institutional repository (IR), OpenKnowledge@NAU. so that other teachers can access them, thus increasing the potential impact each unit can have. Faculty seminar leaders will also work closely with Elders/Traditional Knowledge Scholars at NAU, and we will bring in additional Elders as needed to ensure that the K-12 teachers are engaging the content from both western/mainstream science perspectives and Indigenous knowledge perspectives. We have set aside funding for this important learning experience with Elders. We will also integrate guest lectures by working professionals in FANH fields, especially those who are tribal members. Participation by tribal elders and working professionals from tribal and public land management agencies will enrich the seminar discussions and also help develop future opportunities for further engagement (i.e., school visits, field trips, and shadowing/mentoring opportunities).We will offer the following topics for years 1 and 2, which will be refined for years 3 and 4 with input from participating teachers and other stakeholders. The seminar topics are:Forests and Climate Change. This seminar will be led by PD Kim and co-PD Martin in year 1 for K-12 teachers in Navajo-serving schools. The topic will be revised/refined with input from the year 1 participants and offered again in year 3 to K-12 teachers in other Native-serving schools. This topic lends itself to the DINÉ/INE's professional development model of multi-disciplinary learning and multi-age relevance. Changing the Earth's climate is already impacting everyday lives of tribal members, especially in rural Indigenous communities that rely more directly on forests and rangeland resources. This highly relevant topic also provides ample opportunities to engage active learning strategies aligned to local and state STEM standards. The year-long seminar will cover a range of topics in FANH sciences, such as 1) understanding role of forests in the Earth's climate processes, carbon cycle, and greenhouse gas effects; 2) climate change impacts on forest conditions, natural disturbance regimes and ecosystem services; 3) relevance of traditional ecological knowledge for modern forest management; 4) economics and policies of managing forests and rangeland resources under changing climate at regional, national and global scales. PD Kim has been teaching an introductory freshman-level course in environmental science online, as well as upper-level courses in forest economics and policies in-person at NAU over 20 years. She will offer up-to-date content knowledge, as well as strategies and resources for teaching online, and share her research experiences for conserving forest ecosystem services in tribal forests and tropical developing countries. Co-PD Martin will provide culturally responsive content knowledge from his personal background as a Diné tribal member and extensive professional experiences from over 30 years as a forester for the Navajo Nation and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. We will also utilize the research labs on NAU campus, as well as the Centennial Forest, which is NAU's research, teaching, and demonstration forest of nearly 50,000 acres, and the field camp.Wildlife, plants, and habitats of the Southwest. This seminar will be led by co-PD Fulé and co-PD Martin in year 2 for K-12 teachers in Navajo-serving schools and revised topics will be offered again in year 4 to teachers in other Native-serving schools. This topic addresses interesting and critically important elements of the natural environment, drawing on academic areas of biology, earth science, geography, and cultural studies. We will explore the main habitat types across the elevational gradients of southwestern landscapes, looking at key species of plants and animals. The ecological linkages of food webs, predator-prey relationships, and traditional and modern interactions of Indigenous people with plants and animals will be explored. The design of the seminar will open opportunities for teachers to develop individualized lessons for their students in FANH sciences. The role of domestic animals such as sheep and horses will also be placed in the habitat context. Social elements will include traditional cultural relationships with animals and plants, as well as policy issues such as protection for endangered species and adapting management to changing climate. The seminar will be organized by habitat type in the following categories: (1) Low elevation landscapes characterized by river valleys, grasslands, and deserts; (2) Mid elevation landscapes with pinyon and juniper woodlands, and canyon country; (3) High elevation landscapes with mountain ranges and forests, and headwaters of major rivers. Key species will be presented and participating teachers will be encouraged to add focal species from their own tribal communities. Co-PD Fulé has taught numerous courses with related content aimed at non-majors over many years at NAU and teaching abroad. He will share his research experience on several tribal lands in the Southwest. Co-PD Martin will provide culturally responsive content knowledge from his extensive professional and personal experiences as described above. We will also have short outdoor activities at the Centennial Forest at NAU as well as accessible tribal landscapes close to the sites of seminar meetings, such as the Navajo Nation Forest on the Defiance Plateau near Window Rock or the Chuska Mountains near Tsaile.