EXPLORING CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT IN INDIGENOUS EARLY CHILDHOOD LANGUAGE IMMERSION PROGRAMS: AN INDIGENOUS STORYWORK JOURNEY THROUGH THE KIOWA ENCAMPMENT STORY CIRCLE METHODOLOGY

Our children represent the future of our people. Each generation has a responsibility to ensure the younger generations have what they need to carry our people forward. With this in mind, I am sharing with you, the reader, a story. This story is the journey that I took to conduct my doctoral dissertation research and the lessons learned as I implemented an Indigenous research methodology in order to explore the process of curriculum development in Indigenous early childhood language immersion programs across the United States. This research story is my way to share a little bit about who I am, where I come from, and how it is that I am doing my part to ensure the success of future generations. I come to you in a good way, with an open heart and with the utmost respect. I want to pause here and offer a note to you, as a reader, regarding the structure of this dissertation. I invite you to step through the boundary between the linear worldview and the relational worldview, and meet me on the other side, where the worldviews intersect. Join me in exploring a research journey grounded firmly in Indigenous ways of knowing, and specifically approached from my own Kiowa perspective. In an effort to remain true to who I am as an Indigenous scholar, I am using the methodology of Indigenous Storywork (ISW) (Archibald, 2008), specifically, I am writing from my own Indigenous worldview of the Kiowa people. Through this approach I will explore the various facets of my dissertation journey. Like all Kiowa stories of lived experiences, there is a beginning event, the journey to the destination, and a lesson to be learned. You have entered a space for decolonized research methodologies. I invite you to join me in this journey, a journey towards exploring curriculum development in Indigenous early childhood language immersion programs. Ah-koh (let us begin)

Taking the Pulse of the Universe

There are, at least, four basic characteristics of the universe that are the data source for North American cultures in maintaining a balance between the physical sense of the universe and the intuitive non-dimensional spiritual sense of the universe. This balance is delicate and can become distorted by too many words, too many hypothetical constructs, too many models, and too many non-related experiences. That is the senses become contaminated and can no longer read the data that are available

Human mobility networks reveal increased segregation in large cities

A long-standing expectation is that large, dense, and cosmopolitan areas support socioeconomic mixing and exposure between diverse individuals. It has been difficult to assess this hypothesis because past approaches to measuring socioeconomic mixing have relied on static residential housing data rather than real-life exposures between people at work, in places of leisure, and in home neighborhoods. Here we develop a new measure of exposure segregation (ES) that captures the socioeconomic diversity of everyday encounters. Leveraging cell phone mobility data to represent 1.6 billion exposures among 9.6 million people in the United States, we measure exposure segregation across 382 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and 2829 counties. We discover that exposure segregation is 67% higher in the 10 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) than in small MSAs with fewer than 100,000 residents. This means that, contrary to expectation, residents of large cosmopolitan areas have significantly less exposure to diverse individuals. Second, we find evidence that large cities offer a greater choice of differentiated spaces targeted to specific socioeconomic groups, a dynamic that accounts for this increase in everyday socioeconomic segregation. Third, we discover that this segregation-increasing effect is countered when a city's hubs (e.g. shopping malls) are positioned to bridge diverse neighborhoods and thus attract people of all socioeconomic statuses. Overall, our findings challenge a long-standing conjecture in human geography and urban design, and highlight how built environment can both prevent and facilitate exposure between diverse individuals

Participants' Perceptions of the Ho-Chunk Nation Indigenous Arts and Sciences Institute

Native American culture or Indigenous ways of knowing and learning have been historically underrepresented in US public school classrooms. In this study, I claim that educators should participate in culturally influenced professional development (PD) opportunities to better serve all students. The Ho-Chunk Indigenous Arts & Sciences Institute (HIASI), a PD opportunity available since 2016, was created to assist educators in creating culturally inclusive, collaborative learning environments. In this qualitative, phenomenological study, I examined how HIASI participation influenced Indigenous Knowledge integration into classroom instruction and curriculum, as well as how innovative, Indigenized pedagogy impacted student-teacher relationships and created engaging, collaborative learning environments. The HIASI participants I interviewed for this study described how attending HIASI led them to incorporate more culturally relevant, Indigenized pedagogy into their classrooms, resulting in an increase in student interest and engagement

Sequoyah Home Inventory Collection

Photograph on postcard of Sequoyah's Cabin built about 1829 with added art work by Indian Artist, Redbird Adams

Flat Woods Project

The Flat Woods Project was comprehensive five year action plan for rural development of Clay, Leslie, and Owsley Counties of Kentucky. The video was produced and filmed in 1991 by the Redbird Tri-County Rural Development Action Team

Pre- to post-Lapita predation patterns: shellfish exploitation at Tanamu 1, Caution Bay, Papua New Guinea

Few studies have investigated past human shellfish predation patterns using archaeological shell assemblages from mainland Papua New Guinea dating to the mid-to-late Holocene. Caution Bay boasts the largest Lapita site complex ever recorded on mainland Papua New Guinea and includes rich and diverse shellfish midden assemblages. Human harvesting of shellfish among ancestral coastal Motuan/Koita gardening societies was an important subsistence strategy. Our research questions 1) the nature of selection pressure on shellfish species and 2) optimal foraging strategies adopted by Motuan/Koita peoples. Morphometric analysis of two shellfish species from JD6, Square B, Caution Bay, Papua New Guinea will identify the ageat- death of Anadara spp. and Conomurex luhuanus midden assemblages. Morphometric results will be used to explore whether predation can be isolated to either human exploitation and/or environmental impacts on shellfish populations through time

Middle to Late Holocene near-shore foraging strategies at Caution Bay, Papua New Guinea

Caution Bay, on the South Coast of Papua New Guinea, offers a unique opportunity to assess the possible impacts of predation by pre-Lapita, Lapita, and post-Lapita peoples on local mollusc resources from at least 5000 years ago. Using biometric analysis of the bivalve Anadara antiquata and gastropod Conomurex luhuanus from the site of Tanamu 1, we examine trends in size and maturity variability through time. Results indicate a reduction in valve size of A. antiquata from c. 5000–2800 cal BP (the pre-Lapita period) to c. 2800–2750 cal BP (falling during the Lapita period), while C. luhuanus undergoes a change in maturity categories between the Lapita period and c. 700–100 cal BP (post-Lapita), with the latter containing lower proportions of both immature and mature individuals. Considering that these two mollusc taxa have the capacity to resist high predation pressures through their reproductive strategies and growth rates, in combination with low discard rates throughout Tanamu 1, it is unlikely that the observed trends are solely related to human predation. Rather, set against a context of significant environmental variability and shifting habitats through time, the pre-Lapita, Lapita, and post-Lapita phases represent significant socio-economic changes, whereby there is a shift from mobile foraging to an increasing reliance upon agriculture. It is therefore likely that there were a range of environmental and socio-economic factors influencing mollusc harvesting and the foraging economy more broadly through time