This is an out-of-class activity completed by HSTEM students in response to the reading materials provided. Here, an HSTEM student’s responses to this activity are shown as a sample of what an HSTEM instructor may expect.

Materials

1. Kim Tallbear, “Standing With and Speaking as Faith: A Feminist-Indigenous Approach to Inquiry.” Journal of Research Practice 10, no. 2 (2014): N17. (6 pages)
2. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants.
   • Asters & Goldenrod, 39-47 In Section – “Planting Sweetgrass” (9 pages)
   • The Three Sisters, 128-140 In Section – “Picking Sweetgrass” (13 pages)
   • Sitting in a circle, 223-240 In Section – “Braiding Sweetgrass” (18 pages)
   • Burning Cascade head, 241-253, In Section “Braiding Sweetgrass” (13 Pages)
   • People of Corn, People of Light, 341-347 In Section – “Burning

Optional

1. Jerome Bruner, “Narrative and paradigmatic modes of thought.” 97-115.

Beginning of Module Work

Please complete these to help build your academic foundation and prepare for active participation during our discussion.

Part 1: Summary

Please capture, using bullet points, your top 2-3 key points for each article.

Tallbear

• “The goal of “giving back” to research subjects seems to target a key symptoms of a major disease in knowledge production, but not the crippling disease itself. That is the binary between researcher and researched – between knowing inquirere and who or what are considered to be the resources or grounds for knowledge production. If what we want is democratic knowledge production that serves not only those who inquire and their institutions, but also those who are inquire upon, we must soften boundary between those who know versus those from whom the raw materials of knowledge production are extracted.”
• This quote explores the roles of the “researcher” and those being researched. Both are equally important to the advancement of knowledge – thus, they should be treated as perhaps a team instead of a hierarchy. This is what the author describes in subsequent pages – the aspect of being integrated completely into the community studied; to not emphasize the boundary between researcher and participant. This approach to social research spoke to me – if we, as HSTEMinists – strive to do “research” on social dynamics at Amherst, we must also develop this trust and integration with those we are working with.

Kimmerer

• Aster/Goldenrod
  • “Native scholar Greg Cajete has written that in indigenous ways of knowing, we understand a thing only when we understand it with all four aspects of our being: mind, body, emotion, and spirit. I came to understand quite sharply when I began my training as scientist that science privileges only one, possibly two, of those ways of knowing: mind and body.”
  • This philosophy is interesting to me. I’ve always heard the saying that our mind and body are one – but applying this principle (in addition to “emotion and spirit”) to our understanding of the world is new. We, as humans, are a culmination of our mind, body, emotion, and spirit — and when we privilege one over the other, perhaps we lose sight (and bit of our humanity) of the others.
• The Three Sisters
  • “Individuality is cherished and nurtured, because, in order for the whole to flourish, each of us has to be strong in who we are and carry our gifts with conviction, so they can be shared with others. Being among the sisters provides a visible manifestation of what a community can become when its members understand and share their gifts. In reciprocity, we fill our spirits as well as our bellies.”
  • Someone once asked me: “If passions are determined by how passionate you are about its impact, why are you less passionate about donating a million dollars to the poor (for example) than you are providing therapy to one person?” That’s when I realized that our purpose is not a matter of how “large” or quantifiable our impact is. Our purpose is to discover our passions, and use that passion to serve others in a way that no one else can. Our interests give us a unique set of skills to help one another. The best thing we can do is to realize our potential in our interests, and share that to better our community through these interests.
• Sitting in a circle
  • “This is our work, to discover what we can give. Isn’t this the purpose of education, to learn the nature of your own gifts and how to use them for good in the world?”
  • This made me think about what was previously said about “giving back:” It was previously established that “giving back” is how we eel because we have a moral/legal debt for using the “gifts” of this Earth. I wonder if this is what gives us, as humans, our motivation to succeed and improve our society and world?
• Burning Cascade head
  • “Because we can’t speak the same language, our work as scientists is to piece the story together as best we can. We can’t ask the salmon directly what they need, so we ask them experiments and listen carefully to their answers. We stay up half the ight at the microscope looking at the annual rings in fish ear bones in order to know how the fish react to water temperature. So we can fix it. We run experiments…Doing science with awe and humility is a powerful act of reciprocity with the more than human world.”
  • Alas, here is the intersection of ethics/philsophy/aesthetics and science. To better understand our place as humans and understand other species, we must understand the story of the world around us. As part of figuring out this “story,” we have to use scientific methods where words or behaviors cannot suffice. Science is only a part of this effort (that the humanities and arts also strive toward) to better understand the stories of our surroundings.
• People of Corn, People of Light
  • “And yet scientists mostly convey these stories in a language that excludes readers. Conventions for efficiency and precision make reading scientific papers very difficult for the rest of the world….This has serious cnonsequences for public dialogue about the environment and therefore for real democracy, especially the demogracy of all species. For what good is knowing, unless it is coupled with caring? Science can give us knowing, but caring comes from someplace else.”
  • Wow. “What good is knowing, unless it is coupled with caring?” This is the application of the aesthetic/science approach to understanding the world. Science is all about the “knowing.” ARt is about the emotions and finding aesthetic meaning. In order for science to have most impact, it must be coupled with some sort of artistic means – in order to be emotionally accessible and actually meaningful to the common man. Perhaps this is how “real democracy” is applied in a STEM setting.

Part 2: Reflection

Believing Approach:

For me, writing poetry has always been inspired by the nature around me. I find myself writing the most poems on juxtapositions between human nature and the natural world (i.e. how nature ages with beauty but man-made constructions don’t), so this weeks readings — particularly “Braiding Sweetgrass” — struck a chord with me.

I’ve always felt that my artistic interpretations of nature through music, poetry, or drawing were destined to stay separate from my passion for science. To personify the natural phenomena around me seemed silly after studying the mechanisms for how that phenomenon worked. When the narrator “cross-pollinated” both poetry and science, examining the natural world through both lenses—not at separate moments—but at the same time, I was especially moved. I realized my passions for both art and science didn’t have to exist separate from one another—they could coexist and create profound interpretations of the nature around me.

I also realized that this course, being “human” in STEM, has infinite dimensions. If being “human” is characterized by our natural curiosity and our persistent journey toward creating meaning, we have infinite intersections to explore between STEM and being human. Art and poetry is merely one avenue.

Skeptical Approach:

Seeing art and science as one, perhaps, is really just a study of philosophy. There’s value in creating a new interpretation of the world around us – but I wonder what the applications of this study is, aside from better understanding ourselves and the world. In other words, where does this knowledge lead us?

I wonder if this art/science lens creates a new genre of literature – one that is required to better understand the ethics of the new onset of technology. By humanizing our perceived “facts,” we can see the goals of scientific advancement not merely through objective means like improving practicality and efficiency – but an advancement of our understanding of the self and relationship to our world. This, I think, has most applications in the field of environmental science.