All of my science lessons were about the movements of the Earth and the moon. When it came time to learn about eclipses, the first lesson covered Indigenous peoples stories behind them. We first listened to a story based on Anishinaabe oral tradition about why eclipses happened and then discussed why people may have stories about this kind of event at all. The intent was to have students understand that each culture understands their world in their own way, and that their worldview is valid. This lesson was meant to underscore the importance of Indigenous stories and the respect we should have for them. Every story is based off the culture of the people who created it, so in including it you include the culture of the people, both implicitly and explicitly. In these ways, this connects well to standard 9.
I would love to include this type of science lesson in every unit and want to spend more time on it. I think that one lesson was not enough time for students to get the full context of the story or the culture it came from. It needed scaffolding, particularly because the Anishinaabe are not a local Indigenous nation. In addition, I would try to be more local in the story I picked. I could not find one from this area or anywhere close, but with more research and connections I will hopefully be able to. From there, I would then introduce stories that were not local, and we could compare and discuss how the situation is being represented by each culture.

Science 4 – Indigenous Knowledge of Eclipses