Carol Thurston
- What was your personal motivation behind participating in this project?
I worked as a relief teacher at Oombulgurri, a remote Aboriginal community in the Kimberley. While working in Western Australia, I was involved in their Aboriginal Awareness Program and hence was very keen to be involved in the development of material that would include an Aboriginal perspective into Science teaching.
- How did you go about making links with your local Aboriginal community?
Wyong High School has a large Aboriginal population, therefore we have our own Aboriginal Education Officer, Bronwyn Chambers. Bronwyn is of the local Darkinjung mob and is strongly involved with the community. She proved to be both a resourceful and a knowledgeable person and very reliable sounding board for my ideas.
- How has your view or perspective changed on the impact of Aboriginal beliefs and culture on scientific understanding?
I don't think my perspective has changed at all very much but what I think we need to do is change the perspective of the teenagers, because I think most teenagers in schools have very limited understanding of Aboriginal culture and the benefits that it has for life today, so I think it's very important for us to include Aboriginal perspective into the Science syllabus so we can illustrate to students just how we can use this ancient knowledge to provide very modern remedies.
- What strategies would you use in developing further teaching units to address Aboriginal perspectives in Science?
I think the most important thing is to raise the awareness of where and how Aboriginal perspectives can be included in the curriculum. Since my involvement in the program, our faculty has completed a program audit and reorganised our scope and sequence for Stages 4 and 5 in line with the new syllabus. A new program format allows for the inclusion of an Aboriginal perspective wherever possible and lessons will be developed for most units of work. What I have tried to do is to use material aimed to Aboriginal knowledge and understanding to meet other outcomes. For example, in literacy, I am using an article on natural superglue to teach literacy, specifically affecting ideas and writing a summary, and in ICT, [I'm] constructing a database of Aboriginal technologies. In this way, we can include more Aboriginal perspective material in the classroom activities
- What barriers did you encounter in trying to undertake this project?
I found it difficult to know exactly which perspective I was supposed to be including or addressing. I wanted to provide an interesting and relevant experience for students that would provide the opportunity to develop an appreciation of the Aboriginal culture and the traditional knowledge on which it is built but I didn't want to seem patronising.