CAREER: The Science of Science Education: Resource Access, Conservation, and Cherokee Land-Based Education in Oklahoma

知识的代代相传对于保持文化习俗和社区资源十分重要。 了解失去这种知识的原因是解释文化如何保持几代人的做法和信仰的基础。 该奖项支持的研究重点是了解有关土地及其使用的传统文化知识的传播。 本研究将调查这些知识的沟通障碍，以及寻求了解语言的变化和资源的获取和可用性的减少是如何代表切罗基人面临的重大社会和环境挑战。 切罗基人将如何应对这些挑战，如何制定文化振兴战略，如何修改传播文化知识的传统做法。 为了回答这些问题，人类学家克林特R。科罗拉多大学博尔德分校的卡罗尔将调查美洲原住民如何在精神上和身体上克服他们基于陆地的文化知识和实践的障碍，如何应对社会和环境挑战的方法可以告知更广泛的社会，以及传统和标准科学中的部落环境教育是否有助于当地的文化和生态复原力。这项研究将在俄克拉荷马州的五个县进行，这些县的切罗基族是最大的少数民族。该项目分三个阶段。首先，PI将与部落生物学家和一个致力于保护传统生态知识的切罗基小组合作，为一个特殊的3年计划设计模块，重点是教授以下内容：西部和切罗基地区植物，动物和生态过程的知识;社会科学研究方法，包括人种学访谈，参与式绘图和GIS;切罗基语言;和传统的切罗基医学。PI和他的合作者将竞争性地选择学生完成该计划并收集数据。研究人员和学生将调查农村家庭，进行深入的人种学访谈，并进行参与性绘图，以定位资源区，记录有关这些地区的知识，并确定评估它们的障碍。该项目最后将对教育计划进行评估，最终确定资源地图，并分析数据，以确定资源获取，知识保护，语言振兴和土地保护之间的联系。研究结果将记录并有助于文化复原力和适应环境变化的社会科学理论，以及伴随气候变化而变化的资源获取。更广泛的影响包括培训未来一代的切罗基科学家，支持部落努力保持语言和传统生态知识，并记录资源和语言。所有制作的材料将与切罗基民族，在俄克拉荷马州档案馆，并在科罗拉多大学。

The transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next is important in maintaining cultural practices as well as community resources. Understanding the reasons for losing this knowledge is fundamental to explaining how cultures maintain practices and beliefs over generations. The research supported by this award focuses on understanding the transmission of traditional cultural knowledge about the role of land and its use. This research will investigate the barriers to the communication of this knowledge as well as seeking to understand how changes in language and decreasing access to and availability of resources represent substantial social and environmental challenges facing the Cherokee people. How will the Cherokee people address these challenges and develop strategies for cultural revitalization and modify traditional practices of communicating cultural knowledge. To answer these questions, anthropologist Dr. Clint R. Carroll of the University of Colorado-Boulder will investigate how Native American people mentally and physically navigate barriers to their land-based cultural knowledge and practices, how such approaches to social and environmental challenges may inform the broader society, and whether tribal environmental education in traditional and standard science can contribute to local cultural and ecological resiliency. The research will be carried out in five Oklahoma counties where Cherokees are the largest minority. The project has three phases. First, the PI will collaborate with the tribal biologist and a Cherokee group dedicated to the preservation of traditional ecological knowledge to devise modules for a special 3-year program focused on teaching the following: Western and Cherokee knowledge of regional plants, animals, and ecological processes; social science research methods, including ethnographic interviewing, participatory mapping, and GIS; Cherokee language; and traditional Cherokee medicine. The PI and his collaborators will then competitively select students to complete the program and gather data. The researcher and the students will survey rural households, conduct in-depth ethnographic interviews, and carry out participatory mapping to locate resource areas, record knowledge about those areas, and determine barriers to assessing them. The project will conclude with an assessment of the educational program, finalizing the resource maps, and analyzing the data to pinpoint the linkages between resource access, knowledge preservation, language revitalization, and land conservation. Findings from the research will document and contribute to social science theory of cultural resilience and adaptation to the environmental shifts and changing resource access accompanying climate change. Broader Impacts include training a future generation of Cherokee scientists, supporting tribal efforts to maintain language and traditional ecological knowledge, and documenting resources and language. All materials produced will be housed with the Cherokee Nation, in Oklahoma archives, and at the University of Colorado.