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3203 Southeast Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97202-8199
Indigenous Knowledge in Introductory Chemistry: Use of an Interior Salish Pit-Cooking Practice as a Rich Contextual Framework
As part of a long-term project to revise the curriculum, learning objectives, and delivery of the first-year chemistry sequence at The University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus, we have developed a range of context study activities that demonstrate the applicability of course concepts to societal, environmental, and biomedical issues.
One context study draws meaningful connections from course concepts to local Indigenous knowledge, based on the sophisticated and complex process by which the taproot of balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata) is heated in elaborate cooking pits, as traditionally practiced by the Syilx and Secwépemc peoples of the British Columbia Interior Plateau. This process transforms the indigestible complex carbohydrate inulin into a high-energy food source. The necessity for each step in the pit-cooking process can be understood in terms of principles of chemical kinetics, thermodynamics, acid-base chemistry, and substitution reactions in organic compounds, concepts that map onto our second-term curriculum.
This learning activity was introduced both to further the goals and actions of UBC’s Indigenous Strategic Plan and to support our affective learning objectives for the course. Survey responses indicate high student interest and engagement with the topic, recognition of a meaningful application of multiple course concepts, admiration for the depth and complexity of the Indigenous knowledge involved, and appreciation for the authentic manner in an Indigenous cultural context was integrated into the curriculum.
Dr. W. Stephen McNeil is an Associate Professor at the Okanagan campus of the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. His career has included teaching at two-year college, four-year undergraduate, and research-intensive post-graduate institutions. He is a recipient of the UBC Okanagan Killam Teaching Prize, the Chemical Institute of Canada Chemistry Education Award, and the BC Teaching and Learning Council West Coast Teaching Excellence Award. His chemistry education research interests include the development and assessment of active- and collaborative-learning methods and innovative student-engagement strategies in introductory chemistry, and the impacts of active learning and context-embedded science curricula on affective learning constructs including student senses of identity and belonging.