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Integrative Science: itsR e c l a i m i n g O u r S c i e n c e

BY CHERYL BARTLETT, PhD

In the mid 1990s, a small group of visionaries fromthe Mi’kmaq community of Eskasoni and CapeBreton University (CBU) gathered together to de-velop meaningful new actions aimed at reversing the

fact that very few Mi’kmaq students could be found inpost-secondary science programs anywhere in AtlanticCanada. This low to non-existent participation inuniversity level science was worri-some in the face ofthe rapidly increasing needs in all Mi’kmaq communitiesfor scientifically-educated personnel in sectors such ashealth and medical services, natural resource planningand management, and elementary through high schooleducation. Furthermore, this was vexing; for thousandsof years prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Mi’kmaqpeople were the scientists of Atlantic Canada – they hadrich and complex knowledge about the medicines, theplants, and the animals in their waters, lands, and skiesand they transmitted and enriched this knowledge,generation to generation, via highly effective, traditionalmodes of teaching and learning.

It was from these basic understandings and visionarygoals that a new approach to post-secondary science, tobe called Toqwa’tu’kl Kjijitaqnn (in Mi’kmaq) andIntegrative Science (in English), emerged at CBU.

Toqwa’tu’kl Kjijitaqnn is a program within the four-year Bachelor of Science Community Studies (BScCS)degree, and numerous people at the university andwithin the Mi’kmaq Nation bring energies to its ongoingefforts. The foundational ideas employed in theconceptual development of Toqwa’tu’kl Kjijitaqnn were:bring Indigenous and Western scientific knowledges andways of knowing together in the science curriculum,teach in an integrated way the knowledges from thevarious disciplines of Western science, includeconsciousness as a central curricular topic, and employa holistic pedagogy that emphasizes all aspects of beinghuman, namely the physical, emotional, cognitional, andspiritual. It was recognized at the outset that new,customized science courses would need to be created asvehicles to implement these ideas, the MSIT coursesdescribed in a companion article. Students in theToqwa’tu’kl Kjijitaqnn program must also take otherregular university credit courses in several disciplinesand complete two science work placements. TheToqwa’tu’kl Kjijitaqnn program was developed toattract a diverse range of students, particularly in theenvironmental fields.

The proposal for the innovative Toqwa’tu’klKjijitaqnn program was initially submitted to CBU inJune 1997 and finally approved by the Maritime Prov-inces Higher Education Commission in February 2001.The first cohort of students arrived in Fall 1999, enter-ing a “pilot offering”. Spring 2003 saw the first graduatesof the degree program.

In all that has transpiredin the past decade with re-spect to the Integrative Sci-ence journey, the core ele-ment has always been the“bringing know-ledges to-gether” from Indigenousand Western world views,and especially as this per-tains to their scientificknowledges and ways ofknowing. Indeed, this“bringing know-ledges to-gether” is the Englishtranslation of the Mi’kmaqphrase “Toqwa’tu’klKjijitaqnn”.

The very first “keylessons learned” in ourjourney towards this goal

were that: ₍1₎ we need to acknowledge that we needeach other; and ₍2₎ we need to acknowledge we areon a learning journey, indeed a co-learning journey.Key individuals in the co-learning journey come fromboth the university and Aboriginal communities.Today, Integrative Science at CBU works mostextensively with various Mi’kmaq Elders inUnama’ki-Cape Breton, as well as with the Unama’kiInstitute of Natural Resources based in Eskasoni.And, in that the visionary efforts of IntegrativeScience have outgrown its early home within anundergraduate academic program, the newly-createdInstitute of Integrative Science and Health at CBUwill assist the on-going, co-learning journey andexpansion of Integrative Science to the national andinternational levels.

Program advisor and Mi’kmaq Elder AlbertMarshall of Eskasoni First Nation recently providedthe phrase “Two-Eyed Seeing” to help enrich thelabels for and understandings within IntegrativeScience as it expands its visionary efforts. “Two-EyedSeeing” refers to a traditional Mi’kmaq teaching thathighlights the importance of an individual strivingto see from more than just one perspective. Thisteaching is particularly relevant for IntegrativeScience and its on-going, co-learning journey. Thoseof us involved want … for the sake of our youth, ourcommunities, and Mother Earth … that we learn tosee from our one eye with the strengths of Indigenousknowledges and from our other eye with the strengthsof mainstream scientific knowledges … and that weuse these together for the benefit of all … as “LivingKnowledge for the 21st Century.”

The Integrative Science extended family currentlyincludes many people:• Mi’kmaq Elders, including the core team of Albert

and Murdena Marshall, Diana Denny, Jane Meader,and Laurence Wells, plus many others from all fiveMi’kmaq bands in Cape Breton who have partici-pated through community workshops or otherevents;

• Environmental practitioners and managers includ-ing Charlie Dennis, Laurie Suitor, and CliffordPaul, Unama’ki Insitute of Natural Resources;

• University faculty and staff at CBU including CherylBartlett (Canada Research Chair in Integrative Sci-ence), Rod Beresford, Annamarie Hatcher,Chantelle Cormier, Kazimiera Mizier-Barre; and

• Integrative Science researchers and studentsincluding Marilyn Iwama, Nancy Comeau, DianeIngraham, Andrew Sark, Andrea Bungay, YvonneMosley, Sana Kavanagh, Nadine Lefort, KristyRead, Janice Basque, Michael Denny, DaveForrester, and Sean Howard.

• CBU’s past and present students, including theapproximately 20 who have worked as Integrative

Science research or teaching assistants over the pastseven years, plus dozens more who participatedthrough community workshops or other events.The Integrative Science extended family gratefully

acknowledges that many other individuals andvarious organizations have supported our journeytowards “Living Knowledge for the 21st Century.”

MSIT courses in Integrative Science:

‘Living knowledge andtransdisciplinary Science’

BY ANNAMARIE HATCHER, PhD

MSIT is a Mi’kmaq word meaning ‘everything’or ‘everything together’, and it is the title of the

core courses for the Integrative Science program(Toqwa’tu’kl Kjijitaqnn) at Cape Breton University.These are science courses which engage students in aholistic understanding of nature, drawing on thestrengths of both western and aboriginal scientificknowledge systems. Scientific pursuit in the Westernscience view is objective, quantitative and usuallyreductionist. Scientific pursuit in the Aboriginalworld view is subjective, non-quantitative, andholistic. At the heart of the pursuit, regardless ofworld view, are the human abilities to ask questions,recognize patterns, think creatively, think critically,and communicate understandings to others.

The MSIT courses were initially developed byCheryl Bartlett and Murdena Marshall in 1997.Professors and instructors in the MSIT courses teachUniversity-level science with a difference.

Content is relevant to the life of the students, thescience is organized in several themes, is question-based and transdisciplinary. Students in these classesremain engaged as active learners because they stayinterested. The curriculum for the MSIT coursescentres around a multidisciplinary investigation ofeleven themes. Within each theme, classes will exploretopics in the context of each course’s goals. Thethemes for the 2006-07 school year are:

BirdsThe sky

Cell biologyHuman perception

Weather and climate Parasites and pathogensEvolution and adaptationPlant biology and ecology

Animal biology and ecologySpirituality (humans in nature)

The physics and chemistry of everyday life2006

2007

Annamarie Hatcher is an Assistant Professor of Integrative Scienceat CBU, teaching first and third year MSIT courses.

First yearIntegrative

Sciencestudents hike

the trailbehind

campus tocollect natural

materials touse in a

natural dye lab

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“Two-

Eyed

Seeing”

refers to a

traditional

Mi’kmaq

teaching

that

highlights

the

importance

of an

individual

striving to

see from

more than

just one

perspective

Cheryl Bartlett, PhD is theCanada Research Chair inIntegrative Science (as well asa Professor of Biology, andDirector, Institute for Integra-tive Science & Health) at CapeBreton University.

Integrative Science: itslearning journey towards

Knowledge that is current, useful,relevant, modern

BY ROD BERESFORD, M.SC. (Ph.d in progress)

The Mi’kmaq people have a deep relationship with andunderstanding of the Bras D’Or Lakes’(Pi’tupak) of

Cape Breton Island (Unama’ki). Oysters have tradition-ally been harvested and managed by local native fishersfor many thousands of years. In their traditional ecologi-cal knowledge, we can find observations that spark newresearch directions for conventional science approaches.

The knowledge of the Mi’kmaq people around the BrasD’Or is communicated orally. An oyster fisherman fromWaycobah summarized his experience with the oysters ofthe Bras D’Or Lakes as (paraphrase): “oysters in deeper,colder water always do better than those that are closer toshore in the warmer water. The oysters in the shallow waterdie off every so many years, those in the cold water do muchbetter.”

In 2003 the presence of MSX, a pathogenic oyster para-site, was confirmed by histological techniques. It was notknown (in conventional scientific circles) exactly how longthis parasite had been present in the Bras D’Or Lakes. Thetraditional knowledge of the fisherman from Waycobahsuggests that oysters have died in the past as a result of MSX.

In other areas where MSX is present, mild winters resultin greater mortality and cold winters less. Currently,laboratory research funded by AquaNet (Canada’s Networkof Centres of Excellence for Aquaculture) is underway atCBU to determine the effect of temperature on the parasite.

Concurrently, another research project through the BrasD’Or Institute at CBU is involved with the systematiccollection and documentation of traditional ecologicalknowledge aimed at management of the oyster stocks. Thisproject focuses on interviews of many older oysterfishermen by University science students.

The research is a good, on-going demonstration projectof the intermeshing of two world views in a localenvironment to engage the students in the IntegrativeScience program and keep the research grounded in thecommunity.

Rod Beresford is an Assistant Professor of Integrative Science in the BiologyDepartment at Cape Breton University.

Patterns in science: understandingnature’s ‘big picture’

SANA KAVANAGH, B.A.

Perceiving patterns comes naturally to people accordingto Frank Oppenheimer, scientist and founder of the

famous hands-on museum known as the Exploratoriumin San Francisco.1 Identifying patterns means under-standing the overall organization of an object or process.One way to encourage this is by using a “Pattern ConceptualFramework”, which is a way to organize patterns visuallyusing three types of patterns: natural, ideal, and abstract.

Natural patterns are observed in nature, such as the ap-parent movements of the sun over a year. Ideal patternsare the result of how we perceive the natural patterns andthe way we simplify them in our mind. Abstract refers tothe way we express these patterns so they can be under-stood (words, mathematics, illustration). We can name andillustrate a symbol of the sun’s movements using a circleas a way to represent an annual cycle. Idealization and ab-straction of pattern can occur in many ways. Physicistsuse mathematical formulae, while Indigenous science em-ploys many modes of abstraction such as song, dance, cer-emony, and art. If we look at a species offern that is found in Cape Breton, com-monly known as the ostrich fern in Eng-lish, we see that the name draws atten-tion to the feather-shaped frond thatbears the spores. The scientific name,Matteuccia struthiopteris, breaks downinto Latin roots that mean of an ostrichand feather. Similarly, the etymologicalroots of the Mi’kmaq name,Mtèskmwaqsil, break down into snakeand a plant which is bunched (M.Marshall, personal communication). Thenatural pattern of the green-coiled frondsis idealized by comparing the fern to theshape of bunched-up snakes. All thesenames share the common ground of pattern recognition.

Sana Kavanagh is a research assistant in the Integrative Science Program atCBU and a Masters of Environmental Studies student at Dalhousie University.1 Oppenheimer, F. The Exploratorium: A Playful Museum Combines Per-

ception and Art in Science Education. American Journal of Physics, Volume40/7, July 1972)

Subtle spirit: the enduring principlesof Native American science

BY SEAN HOWARD, PH.D.

Native American psychologist Keith James defines bothculture and science as “an organized set of tools and

techniques for understanding, predicting, and controllingcircumstances and events.”1 The organizing principles ofscience vary greatly from culture to culture, and withincultures over time. In the modern West, the twin-impetusof industrialization and imperialism generated, as physicist

F. David Peat argues in Blackfoot Physics, a “world-view…dominated by the need for progress, development,improvement, evolution, and the linear unfolding oftime.”2 Seen through such a lens, the ‘natural’ role of scienceis to deliver those improvements, to maintain or acceleratethe rate of progress. Traditional Chinese science, incontrast, reflects a cultural preoccupation with balance,seeking optimum harmony with the natural order, the Wayor Tao, rather than maximum exploitation of naturalresources. In similar vein, the key cultural concept of NativeAmerican science is spirit, the animating energy andessence of life. While this spirit is universal, or, rather, isthe universe, its effects can be felt (if one knows how tolook) in the most local and intimate ‘data’ of existence.

To be ‘native’ to a place is, ideally, to live in deepattunement with its spirit. The function of “Native science”,correspondingly, is to facilitate this attunement, to foster

what the Alaskan (Yup’ik) educationalist Oscar Kawageleycalls the “eco-psychology” of indigenous inquiry.3 Rather“than seeking to control natural reality” (the characteristic“ego-psychology” of so much Western science in thecenturies since the European conquest of America), NativeScience, “focuses its attention” upon “inner natures,” the“rich textures and nuances of life” where matter and spirit,chaos and order, essence and entity, psyche and physicsmeet.

Sean Howard is an adjunct professor of political science at CBU.

1 Onondaga/Minsi Lenape; James, K.; ‘Culture: The Spirit Beneath the Sur-face,’ in James, Ed., Science and Native American Communities: Legacies ofPain, Visions of Promise, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, p. 45.

2 Peat, F.D., 2002. Blackfoot Physics: A Journey into the Native AmericanWorldview, Phanes Press, Grand Rapids, MI p. xiii.

3 Oscar Kawageley, ‘Tradition and Education: The World made SeamlessAgain,’ Chapter 8 in Keith James, Ed., Science and Native American Com-munities, Legacies of Pain, Visions of Promise, University of Nebraska Press,Lincoln, NE, p. 51.

Integrative Science students and staff with Isabelle Knockwood of Indian BrookFirst Nation, who discussed with the class traditional knowledge and roles.

‘Living Knowledge for the 21st Century’people, visions & achievements on a co-