Transcending cultural boundaries to improve science education: Legitimization of TEK as a scientific way of knowing in a fifth-grade classroom

Traditional ecological knowledge can be used in the classroom as an avenue to demonstrate how science can be personally and socially relevant to students.  Through the University of Montana GK-12 ECOS program, we developed two student-driven ecological research projects appropriate for upper elementary school students and implemented for fifth-graders on the Flathead Indian Reservation, Montana. In the first investigation, students investigated major ecological events artistically recorded on animal hides by interpreting data recorded during historical  “Winter Counts”, a traditional Native American practice of recording significant events in a particular year.  The students are also completing their own winter count to record the major ecological events of 2006-2007.  The second investigation demonstrated scientific methods more typical of western science to answer basic ecological questions about organism responses to seasonal change and phenology.  We bridged the two investigations by emphasizing the importance of observation and natural history using TEK in the form of Coyote Stories.  These stories are an excellent source of pre-European ecological information and human ecology.  This set of investigations was ideal for meeting both the National Science Standards and the unique “Indian Education for All” standards in Montana by bridging ecology, natural history, the scientific method, and human interactions with the natural world.  This approach and these investigations also can serve as a model for the development of similar projects to highlight the benefits of using TEK as an ecology education tool.