Connection to the Navajo Nation student for cultural relevance
The Navajo Nation language has a content standard in the oral history of connecting today’s saying to daily living. It is believed the origin of our Navajo Creation story had some science concepts, such as microbes. Microbes live right along with the deities and the first people. A deity called White Shell Woman gave birth to twin boys. The Twins were tasked with eradicating all the Giants because the Giants on the land were causing mishaps to the people and other creatures on Earth. The Task was given to the Twins to get rid of the Giants. Long story short, one of the Giants was associated with the microbes. This giant was the leader of the microbes in the Navajo story. Specifically, consider the lice. Life was under the category of microbes, and the lice were begging the twins to spare them and continue to live on Earth with a purpose for the people to stay a family and be netted closely as a family. The twins had mercy and gave the Giants representing the microbes or lice the will to live. Culturally, this particular Giant is still present on Earth to this day. As the traditional story is told, the twin's decision not to slay the Giant, who represented lice and microbes, was to help families congregate. To this day, when a young person is presented with lice, the entire family, aunts, sisters, and mothers come together to remove the lice from the young child’s hair.
It is said that the giants were the children of the sun, and the sun was very protective of his children. Knowing that the twins were the children of the sun as well, eliminating the Sun’s children would be challenging.
I share this cultural piece of what we, as Navajos, share with our children. The stories are not carried on to the next generation, and it is very important to present lessons in science with cultural relevance. It has to be known that people like Arnold Clifford, a gentleman with a Bachelor's degree in geology who collected plant species for colleges like San Juan College in Farmington, New Mexico, are essential scholars in the Navajo Nation. Becoming a true botanist and a Navajo ethnobotanist, he studies plants at San Juan College under his professor, Kenneth Heil. Arnold has collected plants and native plants from surrounding areas of Durango, Colorado; Black Mesa, Arizona; Navajo Mountain, Arizona; Flagstaff Peaks, and most buttes and plateaus in the Four Corners area for New Mexico State University, University of New Mexico, Northern Arizona University, and Brigham Young University. Arnold became aware of his knowledge of edible plants, plants used for dyes, useful plants, medicinal plants, ceremonial plants that provide protection, and plants used in warfare. Most of the teaching came from his grandmother and his ancestors of 7 generations back. His grandmother, Sarah Charley, taught him the awareness of plants and their uses. His article, Nature the Navajo Way, narrates Arnold Clifford’s mission of documenting life, ancient, modern, and endangered plant species. All his documentation is an actual teaching of traditional Navajo understanding of nature and science. Western scientific methods are used in collecting and documenting all plant species. The collaboration of traditional and modern science interpretations of plant existence tells a whole story to him. In turn, he hopes to change the scientific narratives by adding what academia often leaves out.
Arnold is aware that most of the information from his lineage is outside of textbooks. One of the plants that Western scientists should have been aware of is used for blessing ceremonies. These velveteen leaves with small flowers did not have a name in English. So, the plant used for smoking oneself for good thoughts, good plans, and good health was named after him. The scientific name for this plant is Aliciella cliffordii, the “beautyway” smoke ceremonial plant. Arnold studies the traditional plants as a relationship between plants and the earth. Navajo teachings and principles state that plants are alive. The plant society has a deity. It is proper to talk to the plants and their deity. Once the deity acknowledges your request or your need to use them to eat, heal, take part in a ceremony, use to wash and dye, or used to protect, the plants will show themselves to you as a patient. Arnold stated, “I’m thinking about these plants as Holy Plant People and being reverent about my science. When you think of them that way, they the plants, reveal themselves to you.”
At the 6th grade level, students study microbes, cells, DNA, and RNA. During this curriculum's teaching period, the student will be given science vocabulary.
The influence of evolutionary history on human health and disease by Benton and. Labella was published. 2021. In this article, it focuses on chronic inflammatory disease, and some of the Diseases are very familiar to the Navajo Nation, for instance. Diabetes type two is one of the inflammatory diseases that I will touch on. How does evolutionary medicine work? Hand in hand with microbes, viruses, and pathogens. In this curriculum it will show. The students have to learn how microbes, viruses, and pathogens are interrelated in how they are transmitted from human to human. In addition to this section, the topic of how viruses and pathogens can cross from animals to humans is discussed. By explaining how this occurs, children at the 6th-grade level will understand that it cannot just happen by a cough or touching an animal. They will know that such diseases can be transmitted directly from animals to humans, and SARS-CoV-2 is an example. Some transfers are made by insect vectors such as mosquitoes and somehow into the human blood system. One example is the Zika virus that can attack a human's nervous system. Many of these Zika outbreaks are in South America but close to northern Central America. Zika can be found in warm places with an abundance of vegetation. There will be a section in this curriculum that will talk about our defense system against pathogens. There are limitations and constraints on what selection can do in host defense against such sdisease, often resulting from constraints, including evolutionary trade-offs. In this content area, I will explain what the evolutionary tradeoff is. But as in teaching it to the students, it will be just mentioned, and a short video on what evolutionary trade-off means and why it is essential to learn more about it at a higher grade level. This paragraph will state that no matter how fast humans work on vaccines, students need to know human evolution, and that our evolved human defenses as well as our medical technologies are essential but cannot keep pace. Environments, especially those of our own making, lead to non-infectious diseases that result from a mismatch to maternity.
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