Indigenous Knowledge

There are many different ways of looking at environments and the interrelationships between humans and their social and biophysical surroundings. The perspective of the Western (or Northern) world is often the dominant one in education. The purpose of this module is to encourage an appreciation of other experiences of environments and human environment relationships through valuing the indigenous knowledge and practices found in our region, and to utilise this awareness to develop strategies for "rewriting" Western worldviews within environmental education

Indigenous knowledge is the local knowledge that is unique to a culture or society. Indigenous knowledge is also known as local knowledge, folk knowledge, people's knowledge, traditional wisdom or traditional science. This knowledge is passed from generation to generation, usually by word of mouth and cultural rituals, and has been the basis for agriculture, food preparation, health care, education, conservation and the wide range of other activities that sustain a society and its environment in many parts of the world for many centuries.

Indigenous people have a wide knowledge of the ecosystems in which they live and of ways of using natural resources sustainably. However, colonial education systems replaced the practical everyday life aspects of indigenous knowledge and ways of learning with Western notions of abstract knowledge and academic ways of learning. Today, there is a grave risk that much indigenous knowledge is being lost and, along with it, valuable knowledge about ways of living sustainably both ecologically and socially.

This module illustrates ways that indigenous knowledge may be integrated into environmental education and, thereby, bring the benefits of: helping to 'save' indigenous knowledge; encouraging teachers and students to gain enhanced respect for local culture, its wisdom and its environmental ethics; providing alternative ways of teaching and learning locally relevant knowledge and skills; and beginning the process of 'rewriting' Western perspective in education.

NONE OF THIS WAS MY SOURCE. I GOT THIS FROM AN INTERNET WEBSITE STATED BELOW THIS.

http://www.ens.gu.edu.au/ciree/LSE/MOD5.HTM