Category: Projects

Menominee: The Clans of Brothers (1)

by Elham (Ellie)

Many suns have kissed the morning, many moons adorned the night
Come and gone full many winters, and as many summers bright

Across the broad expanse of prairie through the forest, deep and still
O’er the plains and up the mountains, roamed the Indian at his will

Bound by no confederation, scarcely knowing of its worth
Yet the Indians were the sovereigns of the greatest land on earth

B’neath the Pine tree’s friendly shadow, on the shores of lake or stream,
Here he pitched his humble wigwam near the water’s crystal gleam

Here he reared his sons and daughters, nature’s children plain and free
Temperate, Moral, True, and Honest, he knew no law but liberty

He heard the voice of the Great Spirit in the thunder’s rumbling sound
While whispering words brought him message from the happy hunting ground

By suns and moons and winters, counted he days and months and years
And in the spirit of the waters, read he all his hopes and fears

Thus, they dwelt for generations, in their own dear native land
From sea to sea and earthly Eden, with fish and game at every hand

Countless birds sang in the forest, anthems rang from all the trees,
And wildflowers in profusion, scented every wind and breeze

Paradise –or much the same–
long before the white man came …

Anonymous poet (presumably, Native American), published by Sylvester Norick O.F.M in his book Outdoor Life in the Menominee Forest (1980, Franciscan Herald Press, Chicago, Illinois).

This is the sixth day of my journey to the land of the Menominee (Keshena, WI) to conduct my research on the Application of Landscape Visualization in Systems Thinking and Learning at the College of Menominee Nation (CMN). I am in the library (S. Verna Fowler Library, CMN), trying to get as much information as possible about the history of Menominee, its culture (which I am already impressed by), and the traditional approaches to administrating land and forest (interestingly sustainable, I hope I can share some examples later).
I come across a book titled Outdoor Life in the Menominee Forest. As the author believes, he is the first one who “tried” to put the beauty and richness of Menominee into words. The poem that you read is the opening of this book. I surfed the internet, and no one has mentioned this beautiful piece, ever. The poem is obviously trying to illustrate a small part of land elegance before the colonization by the white man.

I have decided to share what I see, feel, and learn and document my short journey to Menominee here. Next time, I will tell you why I chose “Clans of Brothers,” as the title to this piece.

Stay with me if you are interested,
Ellie

 

Menominee Historic Preservation Cultural And Logging Museum/ Menominee Ancestral Bear

Summer STEM Adventure

by Elham (Ellie)

Throughout July and August of 2020, PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), in partnership with PAIU (Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units), has created summer learning resources at home, exploring natural resources and the environment. I was honored to be one of the scientists who were interviewed by WITF Radio. In this short video, I talk about what I am proposing to do as a Ph.D. student in the Geography department. That was a great experience, thanks to Donna McDermott, AAAS Mass Media Fellow.

https://sites.google.com/iu12gmail.org/pbs-paiu-stem-summer-camp/summer-stem-adventure-activities/stem-career-connections?authuser=0

By the way, somewhere in the video by positive and negatives of their decisions, I meant positive and negative effects and consequences of their decisions :))

 

Toward a Sustainable Future through Competency-Based Education

by Elham (Ellie)

Having a sustainable future means exploring approaches that improve the quality of all creatures’ life in all parts of the world equally, without degrading the environment and depriving future generations. It requires an understanding that human passivity might have the majority of consequences, and we must find ways to revolutionize all levels of society. It is an old belief that education can increase this understanding, and behavior consequently; however, conventional knowledge-based educational approaches show unsatisfying records in behavior-changing. The reason is that sustainability needs specific kinds of teaching and learning methods. In the current system of education, the focus is mainly on the cognitive domain of learning, which is about our knowledge and its application, what we know and what we understand, as well as the way we analyze, synthesize and assess this knowledge and understanding. But in sustainability education, we need to concentrate on the affective domain, which is about our values, attitudes, and behaviors and engages audiences emotionally. In response to these requirements, education methods should move toward programs that shape competencies. Competency can be defined as a combination of knowledge with skill and attitude, which enables individuals to act and behave concerning the environment.

In this project, we will review literature that investigates the role of competency-based education for sustainability at different levels, especially higher education. Also, we will discuss how this topic can contribute to collective natural resource decision making and participatory management.

Landscape Visualization: Its Application for Participatory Decision Making

by Elham (Ellie)

The process of engaging communities, stakeholders, and the public in decision making has been always a crucial factor in natural resource management. Recently, most environmental research, assessments, or modeling do not conduct without some sort of reference to stakeholders and their involvement in the process. Although this is a positive development, in a myriad of cases, stakeholders’ engagement has been quite nominal, and complete successful engagement is barely achievable. There are various restrictions that cause unwillingness for the public to participate. So, here an important question comes up. What are the best approaches which increase public participation for mitigating environmental problems and enhancing nature-friendly attitudes and behaviors in society while they meet the aims of participatory methods? Some scholars advocate that visualization can improve understanding of the participants about potential plans, and enhance their ability to communicate their knowledge and ideas. In other words, the use of visualization can fulfill the criteria of an engaging participatory approach, fill the gaps between planners and the public, and provide a common language among them. Visualization is a graphical approach for displaying information and can be referred to as any technique for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message. The general procedure of visualization is to turn raw data into visual components. Currently, I am reviewing the application of visualization in some participatory management and decision making at different times, and parts of the world with various stakeholders and planners.