By participating in this learning community, educators should expect to increase their familiarity with Indigenous science concepts and build confidence in bringing Indigenous science into their classrooms. Educators are asked to attend one session in each topic area. A stipend of $50 per professional learning community will be provided to attendees.
Reach out to Seth Thompson at sthompson@freshwater.org with questions.
PLC Themes and Dates
Persons
Kinship spans the cosmos, but it is perhaps most life-changing when experienced directly and personally. What experiences of yours expanded your understanding of being human in relation to other-than-human beings? How can we respectfully engage a world full of human and nonhuman persons?
Register using the links below.
Tuesday, March 3rd
Speaker: Hillary Barron
Dr. Hillary Barron’s research focuses on creating equitable and culturally responsive science learning opportunities for students. She works with faculty and teaching assistants in academic biology to create teaching strategies that center culturally relevant pedagogy, funds of knowledge, and social justice science issues. Her framework for this work, Culturally Responsive Undergraduate Science Education (CRUSE), is a novel approach to biology education. Dr. Barron is a descendent of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, and is passionate about blending Indigenous and Western Science.
Thursday, March 5th
Speaker: Gerald White
Anishinaabe artist and educator from the Leech Lake Band of Pillagers, grew up in Chi-achaawbawning and graduated from Deer River High School. He has been teaching introductory Ojibwe language, history, and cultural classes, including Ojibwe woodworking at Deer River School District for the past 17 years. He has been a visual artist his whole life but has been painting, mostly in watercolor, over the last 30 years. He credits Carl Gawboy, another Anishinaabe painter, as the artist who inspired him to start watercolor painting. Primarily a self-taught painter, his images depict the traditional form of dance common to the Leech Lake area, which is the Jingle Dress and Men’s Woodland. Gerald was an artist in residence at the Minnesota Historical Society in 2019, where he researched powwow regalia specific to the Woodland style.
Monday, March 9th
Speaker: Dana Trickey
is an Extension educator and leader of the White Earth Tribal 4-H Youth Program in Moorhead, which provides cultural experiences, leadership opportunities, and programming for elders, families, and partners on the reservation and in surrounding Indigenous communities.
Practice
From the perspective of kinship as a recognition of nonhuman personhood, of kincentric ethics, and Kinship revolutionized into kinning, how are we to live? What are the practical, every day, and lifelong ways we become kin?
Register using the links below.
Monday, April 13th
Speaker: Gerald White
Anishinaabe artist and educator from the Leech Lake Band of Pillagers, grew up in Chi-achaawbawning and graduated from Deer River High School. He has been teaching introductory Ojibwe language, history, and cultural classes, including Ojibwe woodworking at Deer River School District for the past 17 years. He has been a visual artist his whole life but has been painting, mostly in watercolor, over the last 30 years. He credits Carl Gawboy, another Anishinaabe painter, as the artist who inspired him to start watercolor painting. Primarily a self-taught painter, his images depict the traditional form of dance common to the Leech Lake area, which is the Jingle Dress and Men’s Woodland. Gerald was an artist in residence at the Minnesota Historical Society in 2019, where he researched powwow regalia specific to the Woodland style.
Wednesday, April 15th
Speaker: Taylor Fairbanks
Taylor Fairbanks ’26 is a double-major in American Indian Studies and sociology and an Honors student. She’s also a first-generation student and a recipient of the 2025 President's Student Leadership and Service Award for her outstanding leadership and service to the community and the University.
Tuesday, April 21st
Speaker: Kirisitina Sailiata
Kirisitina (Kiri) Sailiata earned her PhD and MA in American Culture from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and her BA in American Studies from Macalester College. She is at work on her first book project entitled “The Making of Samoa Amelika” which examines the formation of American Samoa as a territory and attending U.S. citizenship debates in the early 20th century. Her recent and forthcoming publications trace the history of transnational Native Pacific feminist movements, fishing rights, anti-nuclear activism, citizenship debates, and Pacific memory. Sailiata currently teaches courses on contemporary Indigenous visual culture, environmental justice, Indigenous politics, law and social movements with an emphasis on the Pacific Islands region.
Thursday, April 23rd
Speaker: To be determined
Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). The Trust Fund is a permanent fund constitutionally established by the citizens of Minnesota to assist in the protection, conservation, preservation, and enhancement of the state’s air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources.
This work is supported by a University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment Impact Goal grant, 2023-2026, titled “Delivering Culturally Integrated Sustainability Education Through Supported Teacher Professional Development.,” under Grant No. IG 72.