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TEK-STEAM
Initiative

Working with Indigenous communities to unite traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) with Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics (STEAM)

20190915 Coastal Resilience Poster

What is the TEK-STEAM Initiative?

The MIT Resilient Communities Lab (RCL) works on sustainable solutions for climate change adaptation that integrate traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and STEAM. Across our collaborative networks, we aim to mainstream TEK-STEAM knowledge in identifying critical regional socio-ecological systems that must be addressed to improve equitable sustainability and adaptation outcomes for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

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What are our goals?

  • Build long-term relationships with Indigenous communities locally, regionally, domestically, and internationally while ensuring that all research is accountable to Indigenous communities.  

  • Support Indigenous faculty and students. 

  • Advance the creation of an Indigenous Research Center at MIT that will serve as a dedicated space for Indigenous knowledge that fuses together western academic disciplines. While also acting as a centralized place to reach Indigenous communities. 

  • Weave TEK, STEAM, and other knowledge systems into MIT academic curriculums.

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Building a TEK-STEAM Consortium

Seeking the convergence of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and knowledge across Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) disciplines to achieving innovative, sustainable, and regionally appropriate mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The IPCC has concluded that traditional knowledge must be included in future sustainability and adaptation planning processes. Through our work, we address questions of the socio-economic and ecological values and processes that are needed to formulate equitable adaptation strategies to climate change.

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Teaching

RCL Director Dr. Janelle Knox-Hayes is a faculty member of The Indigenous Community Planning Project in DUSP, a multi-disciplinary research and teaching effort that seeks to center Indigeneity within the field of urban planning. Students and faculty within the department engage with Indigenous communities, scholars, leaders, and activists to explore together how to address questions of sovereignty, identity, land-use planning, climate adaptation, natural resource development, and historical land-taking.

 

The research, curriculum development, and practice activities are undertaken in partnership with indigenous communities and seek to highlight lessons and practices from indigenous planning that can be applied more generally. The project has strengthened connections with local Indigenous communities in Massachusetts, the MIT SOLVE Indigenous Fellows program, and Indigenous student groups at MIT as they seek to add Indigenous students, staff, and faculty to the MIT community.

 

The 11.171/11.172 Indigenous Environmental Planning course co-taught by Knox-Hayes and Associate Professor Gabriela Carolini is an ongoing, adaptive effort to realize the pedagogical goals of the Indigenous Planning Project. The course examines how governmental planning has adversely affected Indigenous people’s relationships with their homelands and local environments. Participants - faculty, student, and community guests - in the course seek to address current environmental challenges and use participatory action research methods to discover potential solutions to these challenges.

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Interested in partnering?

Please reach out to us on the contact page.

 

We welcome government, private sector, non-profit, and academic collaborations.

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