Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Engaging High School Girls in Native American Culturally Responsive STEAM Enrichment Activities
Engaging High School Girls in Native American Culturally Responsive STEAM Enrichment Activities
Sanovia (2016) noted that in order for persons outside the bining STEM plus art (Maeda, 2013; Bequette and Be- servation and Science (EROS), a United States Geological
middle class to gain advantage in a middle-class based quette, 2012). The “STEAM Girls” hereafter refers to FIS Survey (USGS) facility near Baltic, SD; and three bus trips
system, they need to know the rules, whether it is non- high school participants. “Project leaders” refers to the PI and tours to STEM and arts facilities at SDSU. Those tours
reservation culture, campus culture, academia culture, sci- and Co-PI’s, along with their assistants who included five included the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering, the
ence culture, technology culture, engineering culture, or Native American women students from SDSU (sometimes Taylor Herbarium, the American Indian Student Center,
mathematics culture, and an endless list of other macro- including selected relatives as volunteers). “The group” re- the South Dakota Art Museum, the Agricultural Heritage
and micro-cultures. fers to participating STEAM Girls and project leaders. Museum, the College of Nursing, the Davis Dairy Plant (ice
In the pilot study conducted by Kant and others Two of the professional project leaders with the most cream manufacturing), and the massive Daktronics score-
(2015a), designed to determine why more Native Ameri- time to devote to enrichment activities hold Ph.D.’s in bio- board at the Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium. Flandreau Indian
cans do not take up engineering in South Dakota, a Native logical sciences or engineering and have unique expertise School (FIS) administrators and their science teacher se-
American participant remarked that he and others needed in Dakota/Lakota arts and crafts, and cultural traditions. A lected dates and meeting times.
to know more about how the system works if he were ever third professional project leader holds a Ph.D. in anthro- The two most dominant themes for activities at the
to select engineering studies. The participant advised as pology and is an enrolled tribal member in South Dakota FIS campus included Native plants and glass making be-
follows. with life-long experience in Native American culture in cause of the central importance of Native fruits and glass
Give students more information about it and about the the state. beads in traditional Native American life in South Dakota.
opportunities. I would get graduates, who have a job Project leaders emphasized Dakota/Lakota traditional Another reason was that key project leaders had exper-
in engineering to come in and express their experiences, arts and crafts, mostly focused on crafts. Leaders also in- tise in those specific topics. The group identified char-
whether they are native or non-native… . Students cluded bus trips to selected educational sites to help the acteristics of traditionally used Native fruits and plants,
could get every little detail from dorm life to academ- STEAM Girls to build social and cultural capital in their life made and ate tribal foods, collected Native plants, and
ics, summers, and how to pay for it. Let students know experiences through enrichment activities. Those bus trip prepared herbarium-style plant vouchers, established an
that there are different ways to accomplish those things, activities are examples of the “concerted cultivation” prac- FIS herbarium, and related the plant activities to NASA’s
but how they persevered, without race being a part of it. ticed by middle class parents in Lareau’s findings. Visible Earth website and plant groundcover from space.
(Kant, et al., 2015a, p. 27) The group met monthly (Table 1) from noon to 4:00 The group made wild rose petal perfume. On Earth Day,
pm from October 2015 to April 2016 at the FIS Tea Room the group and some FIS employees planted over 100 tra-
STEAM Girls Enrichment Activities with kitchen facilities and tables, or at grassy shaded areas ditional Native plants on the FIS campus as a resource for
The project that is the focus of this paper was known on the FIS campus, or during bus trips. The group took their herbarium, with each STEAM Girl tagging a plant
as STEAM Girls after the movement that advocates com- a bus trip and tour of the Center for Earth Resources Ob- with her name to personalize the experience and create a
Post-Focus Group
During a focus group led by four project leaders at the
final STEAM Girls meeting, 7 (n=7) of 17 respondents
discussed what they liked, what should be increased,
and how they felt about the enrichment program. Project
leaders took notes and reached consensus in their individ-
ual notetaking, including themes, after the activity. Five
major themes emerged as follows.
Figure 4. After participating in STEAM Girls activities, a majority of respondents answered “agree” or “strong-
1. Interested in STEAM Girls activities, ly agree” that they like STE and that by majoring in those disciplines and obtaining a degree, they could help
2. Liked activities that included pride in Native Ameri- to improve their communities. The exception was mathematics.
can culture,
3. Enjoyed SDSU engagement, sacred pollen is for them.” Positive SDSU engagement
4. Reinforced positive feelings about STEM studies and • “The beadwork lessons were interesting. It is really • “The ice cream manufacturing tour [at SDSU] was
careers, and cool to find out how other tribes do things.” pretty cool. We had a walking tour there. We ex-
• “We would rather plant the kinds of plants we grew plored what they do, and they told us some of the
5. Hoped that activities could continue. students were creating their own flavors.”
up around. In my area, that would be chokecherry
We did not further summarize statements within the trees and plum trees. It is important.” • “I liked going to SDSU and meeting all of the other
themes because of the small sample and in order to avoid • “We loved learning about what the SDSU students students. You guys are cool.”
diluting Native voice. The following are quotations from were learning about at the SDSU traditional [Native • “We should have more SDSU students get involved.
respondents for each of the major themes. American] dinner.” We had two or three students, but they could not al-
Interesting Activities • “It would be cool to have someone who teaches ways make it. It is still cool because we got to learn
American Indian Studies to tell us more about what about their experiences.”
• “They were different from anything I have ever done
before.” Native Americans used to plant and things like that • “I liked visiting the College of Nursing at SDSU and
– someone like Dr. [Gary] Larson from the Taylor putting needles in fake arms as the activity there.”
• “I liked that each lesson was different each time.” Herbarium.”
• “Bring more SDSU interns so we can hear more stu-
• “I liked it when we spread those [traditional] seeds out.” • “It would be cool to show student success stories dent stories.”
• “I like it when we painted the dry milkweed pods as from Native American students who majored in
dried flowers.” STEM.” Reinforcement of positive interest in STEM studies
• “I liked what we did today [planting traditional • “I think it would be helpful to major in STEM, and and careers
bushes and trees] a lot. It is something I have always then I could go and do STEAM Girl stuff like this to • “I liked it when we went to the field and learned
wanted to do.” help explain these things to other people to help the more about the Daktronics scoreboard and engi-
profession.” neering [at SDSU].
• “I plan on loving my job and not dreading it. When I
am older, I want to do something I love doing.” • “My grandpa used to make the blueprints of our • “Those engineering lessons with Dr. Burckhard were
roads, and he shaped how they are now.” really cool. I never knew that candy was made like
Cultural pride • “There are engineers right now trying to put a pipe- that.”
• “I would look at the plants that we used to eat back line through my rez [reservation].” • “I live right next to a river, and it is going to make me
then and plant more of them.” • “Going to the American Indian Student Center helped think a lot about the plants and how we can learn
because we learned from people who are experienc- more about them.”
• “Some of my favorite parts included the cooking, and
making food was fun. It is more cool to make tradi- ing campus life and have knowledge about it.” • “I was interested in STEM before, but these lessons
tional foods, but it was fun just to learn to do stuff.” • “Grandmas know a lot, and they can teach you, if reinforce my idea.”
• “I liked cooking traditional foods, jelly and wojapi [a they want to.” • “I really liked the STEM activities, and I was not
fruit pudding].” • “This women’s society idea would be really cool, thinking of STEM at all, before.”
• “It would be cool to learn about other cultures, like especially hearing what the elders have to say. That • “Taking a class for science now, this has helped rein-
where other people came from. My best friend is would get a lot more girls involved, too. Having even force the STEM stuff.”
Apache, and I did not know anything about how more staff would be cool, too.”
• “Back at home, all of our plants look different to me