Pic River First Nation, Ontario

Biigtigong Nishnaabeg (Pic River First Nation), Ontario

Challenge Statement

By means of active, cross-generational, technology-empowered, real-world participation in the intergenerational transfer of traditional Nishnaabe knowledge through the medium of our language, and the bilingual delivery of modern K-12 STEM knowledge, our community will transform our youth into better-educated, more employable, better-grounded, and more holistically Nishaabe people.

Summary

We are indigenously embracing the bilingual (Nishnaabemwin and English), K-12 STEM education of our youth. At the end of high school, our youth will have received more than 2,000 hours of mobile-enabled, online Nishnaabe-language immersion instruction in all of our core aadsookaanan (sacred stories). Additionally, our youth will be nearly-completely able to comprehend spoken Nishnaabemwin, will have attained a basic proficiency in coding and robotics, and will possess a strong foundation in mathematics and science. All STEM subject videos and courses will be available under a creative commons license, in both Nishnaabemwin and in English. All of this education will occur online with a strong real-world participation component built into the program. Our community’s open source, mobile-enabled, eLearning platform facilitates the learning of the STEM subjects. And, our open source, mobile-enabled, eAcquisition platform facilitates the acquisition of our Nishnaabe language. The entire educational experience is tied together with our community’s mobile-enabled meetup platform serving as a bridge between the digital, online world and the material, real world. Our youth are strongly encouraged and empowered to participate not only in online communities, but in the traditional Nishnaabe activities going on in the real-world community, as well.