Introduction

Most of the education authorities and science education curriculum documents now advocate that students should look at Australian Indigenous knowledge and culture. Looking at Indigenous science will give students another window on Indigenous Australians that relates to their culture and their worldview (how they see the world).

As an understanding of the Australian environment is developing through the western science perspective, there is now an acknowledgment that Indigenous knowledge is a valuable component. This knowledge component in Australia and overseas is sometimes referred to as Traditional Ecological Knowledge.

There are several key ideas to keep in mind about Indigenous science that are important for students to understand:

1. Indigenous peoples still exist as part of our Australian community and many of them have different lifestyles to non-indigenous Australians.
2. However, many Indigenous people do not live a traditional lifestyle and some have little or no knowledge of their traditions, beliefs, language or country.
3. Indigenous peoples have lived in Australia for many thousands of years, they have developed technologies which allowed them to survive successfully over that time, and since colonisation they have adopted and adapted western technologies that they feel are useful.
4. Divisions between science and technology in particular, and science and other forms of knowledge in general, don’t exist in an Indigenous context, so much of the student material refers to technologies that Indigenous people used to survive.
5. For Indigenous people the explanation of why something happens is often related to the Dreaming and is a significant part of the associated knowledge. It is worth reminding yourself that even less than 200 years ago that many western scientific phenomena were still explained in a similar way.

On occasions you will find that there are Indigenous students in your classroom and you will need to be sensitive to their presence. They may not be aware of the knowledge in this chapter or some of it may conflict with their local cultural knowledge. In some cases it may be culturally inappropriate for them to take part in lessons. For example, knowledge of didgeridus is traditionally considered men’s knowledge and girls will be reluctant to be involved in a lesson about them.

Why indigenous science should be included in the science curriculum

In Michie (2002) I suggested that indigenous science should be included in the curriculum because of its value because

• indigenous science as part of the way we can understand the world
• indigenous science tells us about western science and science education
• it is a way of achieving Reconciliation between Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples and a vehicle for social justice.

The following are extracts from Michie (2002):

Indigenous science reminds me that there are different ways of looking at the world and that knowledge is valued in different ways. Indigenous science gives me another perspective on the world. It also gives me, as an individual, a way of understanding Indigenous cultures and the ways they understand things beyond just a tokenistic “spaghetti and polka” or “bush tucker and corroboree” version of culture (Michie et al, 1998). The aim of the science curriculum should be to promote consideration of the differing worldviews, not solely to enrich Western science but to facilitate a two-way exchange of knowledge and of cultural understanding.

One aspect of understanding indigenous science is that it can offer knowledge about the Australian environment that has been collected over thousands of years. Indigenous knowledge has been shown to be of value, particularly in the area of environmental management. For instance, traditional burning practices are used in the management of areas such as Kakadu and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Parks . Elsewhere aspects of the Indigenous pharmacopeia have been identified and may be of value to western medicine.

I think it is important to consider the nexus between science and science education, and the nature of science. The emphasis of science education in the past has been on science content but new initiatives in curriculum, particularly focusing on scientific literacy, are attempting to move away from this focus. If one of the concerns of science education is looking at the nature of science then it could include ideas outside of the definition of “science”, such as indigenous science and the history of science. It would be interesting to examine in detail pseudoscience and even creation science to see why they are rejected as science.

Some people would ask, “What does science have to do with Reconciliation?” Firstly it is the western way of thinking which has divided knowledge into various disciplines, a relatively recent phenomenon. To match the Indigenous “holistic” approach to knowledge, Western knowledge has the disadvantage of having to reconstruct itself from its various disciplines. Secondly, understanding indigenous cultures needs to celebrate the positives about Indigenous cultures rather than focusing on the pejorative aspects, and this needs to include science as part of culture.

I think that Indigenous science should be included in classroom science but it needs to be approached in a non-tokenistic way – informed and not dismissive in its status. However, it could be approached in a different way, using an integrated/holistic approach, particularly in primary school.

Primary school teachers have the potential to become better teachers of indigenous science because they can integrate the learning over a range of subjects – they can take a holistic/integrated approach similar to the Indigenous people (which they may already do through integrated and cooperative learning strategies). Secondary teachers may have less potential for this although the middle school facilitates such methodologies.

A tokenistic approach to Indigenous science can oversimplify the complexity of the understandings. Indigenous knowledge brings with it a complex web of relationships which western science overlooks. Teachers themselves may not have the depth of understanding and may unwittingly pass on poor attitudes about Indigenous people to their students.

Secondly, there is a perception that Indigenous science is not as valuable as western science and teachers may see the need for students to understand real science as a justification for dropping the indigenous components. It is valuable to the people who own the Indigenous knowledge and who are often willing to pass it on because of its potential.

[Extracts from Michie, Michael. (2002). Why Indigenous science should be included in the school science curriculum. Australian Science Teachers’ Journal, 48(2), 36-40. You can download a pdf copy of this paper from Michie02.]