Communications of the ACM
Initiative Grants Access to STEM Curriculum
A program to help enhance American Indian students' achievement in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields has been developed by the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) in collaboration with tribal colleges. The result is a curriculum on climate change that faculty and students can share online.
AIHEC's Katherine Mitchell says the course series helps students and faculty at small, often far-flung tribal institutions access STEM courses that might otherwise be closed to them. Students gain knowledge about climate change using medicine wheel values, which emphasize the interconnected effects of a changing climate on the earth.
Mitchell says using the medicine wheel symbol exemplifies how STEM studies can be made culturally pertinent to American Indian students. AIHEC research indicates that embedding indigenous knowledge into a science curriculum contributes to students' success. [The complete article this summary references can be found on page 7 of the March 18 issue of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.]
From Diverse: Issues in Higher Education
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