Our Stories
Melding Traditional Knowledge and Modern Science
This spring, NAU's Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biology scholars looked to our diverse cultural backgrounds in an attempt to
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share traditional knowledges from each scholar’s cultural upbringing
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identify what traditional knowledge encompasses
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and find commonalities between traditional knowledge and modern scientific knowledge.
Sharing our traditional knowledge in its many forms (naturalistic beliefs, stories, remedies, practices, worldviews, etc.) was not a difficult task. We all had a unique worldview and many home remedies and “cure-alls” to share. We immediately noticed that there was overlap of medicinal herbal usage in each of our backgrounds. These were interesting findings and perhaps suggest our historical-ancestral relationships and struggles.
In the end, our definition of traditional knowledge came to encompass naturalistic medicinal healing, spiritual meaning, cultural practices, and the details of how such knowledge is retained and passed on and incorporated into community survival. The connections between modern science and traditional knowledge became clear as we shared our knowledge of our own traditions and scientific interests: modern science and traditional knowledge have the same goal of explaining the world around us.
Because traditional knowledge is often passed on in stories, we chose that medium to share how we each connect modern science and traditional knowledge. Our stories are linked on the right hand side of this page.