CLICK ABOVE TO SEE A SLIDESHOW OF IMAGES FROM STEM ACTIVITIES DAY
Representatives from the Boeing Company opened a busy afternoon of hands-on STEM activities for middle and high school students. In addition to Boeing, activities were offered by organizations like the American Chemical Society, Amazon, Blue Origin, Raytheon Technologies, Sphero Bolt, U.S. Geological Survey, NSA, U.S. DOE Office of Legacy Management, General Motors, Bodwé Professional Services Group, Alliance of Indigenous Math Circles, University of Saskatchewan, U.S. Air Force Academy, George Mason University, and NASA. “This was a great day,” said Stephen West of Boeing. “We’ve been busy the whole time.”
A lively game of bingo had pre-college students covering squares like “someone who dances tradish,” “someone who hasn’t watched Rez Dogs,” and “someone who wants to be an engineer.” And after an informative presentation by Dr. Johnny Poolaw and other AISES Student Success staff members on topics like the National American Indian Science and Engineering Fair (NAISEF) and the essentials of preparing for college, a game of Jeopardy (“Know Your Lands” for $300?) had the students vying for the win, which was snagged by the team from LaFayette, N.Y., led by their advisor Joyce Lewis, a math teacher at LaFayette Junior/Senior High School.
The impressive number of intriguing sessions made for some difficult choices at this National Conference. Here are snapshots of just some of them.
“I highly recommend a stop at the Resume Room. It’s the first step to getting an interview,” said presenter Katelin Bigelow, from Merck. The session also pointed out that using keywords from the company website and position posting is a good way to make sure the algorithm clears your resume for an interview. “The internet is your friend. Use it. Understand the nuances and divisions in a company and tailor your resume and interview responses.” Other advice suggested that job prospects ask informed questions and be able to speak to the company’s mission and values. Also, participate in networking at AISES and keep an open mind about all conversations.
Heather Heckler and Angie Haban from the General Motors Indigenous Peoples Network explained the importance of storytelling to social interaction in general, and to the culture at GM in particular. “At GM we do a lot of personal storytelling. Everyone has stories and when you tell a story, others will do the same. The power of personal storytelling is part of bringing your whole self to work,” said Haban. GM partners with the Moth, a nonprofit dedicated to storytelling, explained Heckler. “Storytelling is a tool that can help you connect to an inclusive workplace or school culture.” To prove the power of storytelling, they divided session attendees into groups with story prompts, and everyone shared a personal story. Said one participant who told an eloquent story, “I didn’t know what I was going to say, but now I do.”
A panel from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory explained that the Department of Energy, which runs the national labs, conducts research that goes beyond energy challenges. Panelist Amber Golini described the work she does in the biosciences. “The Integrative Genomics Building just opened when I started,” she said. “It’s a fantastic facility that allows for working with others in different areas.” Sara Harmon pointed out that the DOE is starting to partner with Diné College saying, “We are working on biological replacements for products that are currently made from petroleum products.”
A panel of presenters pointed out that the Coast Guard is one of five U.S. military services, responsible for protecting ports and waterways, enforcing laws, and conducting rescues. You can choose you own course in the Coast Guard, which offers a scholarship program: College Student Pre-commissioning Initiative (CSPI), including up to two years of paid tuition and fees plus a salary and other benefits. “I’m originally from a small community on the Navajo Nation. I’ve been enlisted for 10 years now. I’m stationed in California, but I’ve worked all over, including in the Arctic, where I’ve seen polar bears,” said Corylee Redhorse.
“The Coast Guard is a small service that’s family and community oriented. We are a humanitarian service — we like to save lives,” said Lieutenant Kiana Kekoa, “The Coast Guard Academy doesn’t require a congressional nomination, which is unusual, and they pay you to go to school.”
The discussion led by a panel from Accenture focused on the potential benefits and risks of AI, including ethical considerations and possible economic gains, while respecting the sovereignty and culture of Indigenous communities. “Our session was the most successful ever,” said Karla Kramer. “We made so many great connections about AI with Indigenous languages and different tribes.”
Presenter Regan Mukpik, a student at San Diego State University, pointed out that there are more effective learning options than committing information to memory. “Memorization is a short-term solution,” said Mukpik. Explaining why cycles of memorizing are less than optimal, she said, “You’re repeating something and drilling it in your brain. You’re just memorizing to regurgitate it, then you’re done with it. You’re not applying it. You don’t see how it applies to other subjects or other ways. You keep doing it over and over. It’s tiring. You don’t want to do it anymore.” She encouraged attendees to “understand the concept of active learning strategies — like memorization versus learning — to reevaluate your own study habits.”
A panel from AES discussed the renewable energy industry, including a range of careers. “Thanks to President Biden and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), there is a ton of funding available now for projects in renewable energy. Tribes that aren’t taxable entities can take the tax credit as a direct payment,” said Tanya Martinez.
Much wisdom was heard during this session. Here is a sampling of the stories told by members of the AISES Council of Elders.
“As we went along, we realized that there was so much exciting work to do. That definitely, we’re going to try to have to be 100 years old to get all of this done. So I’m 75 and I’m banking on 100. My grandmother lived to be 104. And so, there’s longevity. However long it is, we just have that wonderful time to do what we have to do in a decolonized way.” — Faith Spotted Eagle
“It’s amazing how many Indian nations have stories about the constellation of Pegasus, the horse constellation. We invited all the astro historians and scholars — the guys that wrote the textbooks to hear our stories. I said to them, ‘We’re going to tell our stories in the planetarium at the University of Colorado and you need to be quiet.’ So they behaved themselves. And all these Indians got up and talked about stories about the stars. We have our own star knowledge. We had people talk about the planets, and we took the planetarium back to show the constellations. At the end we had poems — we had people singing songs. These scholars said, ‘Wait a sec, we didn’t know you knew so much.” They were surprised. They said, “You filled in some holes that we didn’t know existed. We don’t want to lecture — we want to become partners.” Our people knew lots of things. Part of the story is disclosing who we are. That’s really important. I’ll end with a story about if aliens came to America and wiped out all the people, in a hundred years, Indians would emerge from the soil because we are the soul of America.” — Norbert Hill
“Brilliant young people. Our people. Our beloved children. Spoken in Cheyenne (hama wasstooineal). Our language reflects our culture. Our culture can be expressed through those languages — they’re intertwined — they’re very necessary. And so I would like to express the fact that I am so very proud of each and every one of you in terms of what you are doing and making your sacrifices and getting the education. And taking the time to even come and learn more and relax for three days at AISES. Three days. What I have done for almost half my life was to teach in Native American studies at the higher education level because it is my destiny that you not only get your degrees in whatever discipline it is that you are pursuing, but you need to maintain that knowledge of who you are and where you come from. You have to know your identity. Your nation’s history. Your nation’s story. You have to know the kinds of experiences that your grandparents endured and the sacrifices they made so that many of us can be alive today. Our stories contain those histories following Anglo contact. But we have wonderful stories that tell us about our beginnings as a people, and there are protocols that say you can only tell those stories at night or only in the wintertime. Those are the kinds of boundaries that our grandparents experienced and that we continue to observe today.
I finally retired from the university system, Montana State University in Bozeman, in 2003, but I have not quit teaching. Right at this moment I am one of four master teachers of the Cheyenne language program of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people of Oklahoma. Languages, we cannot let them disappear. So that is something that I would like you to think about as you pursue your education. What am I going to do to help our ways of life continue to exist unto the seventh generation? What can I learn from those behind? We have wonderful stories that we get told throughout time about how we came to live here. Whether or not we emerged. Whether we fell from the sky. Whether some of our relatives dived down to get some mud to make this Earth. Remember that we have our own genesis stories. Learn them. Learn them and carry them in your heart the way your grandparents did. For us as Cheyenne people, ours is sort of a combination of how an animal dives down to get some mud and is helped by our winged relative — those that fly — to make this Earth a place for us to live. We come from the Earth. We belong to the Earth.” — Dr. Henrietta Mann
Hosted by Indigenous at Xbox, this session focused on video games as a medium for telling and perpetuating Indigenous stories. “This session is about narrative sovereignty and video games. Narrative sovereignty is the ability to tell your own stories,” said Gillian Vaughn, who works within Xbox at Microsoft. “It’s important that Native people have narrative sovereignty so we can tell our own stories in our own way.”
In this well-attended session led by Winds of Change magazine's Editor Karen English, Design Director Kristen Goodfriend, and Managing Director of Editorial and Special Projects Montoya Whiteman, attendees learned about the valuable resource published every year in the annual Special College issue of Winds of Change. The moderators walked the group through the information for each college listed and explained how to apply it to their individual college searches. A lively discussion about the admission process came out of the Q&A portion. At the end, attendees were given a quiz on what they learned.