LESSON 4

• Indigenous knowledge is embedded in the daily life experiences of young children as they grow up. They live and grow in a society where the members of the community prominently practice indigenous knowledge.
• Their parents and other older folks served as their first teachers and their methods of teaching are very effective in transmitting cultural knowledge in their minds. The lessons they learned are intimately interwoven with their culture and the environment.
• Their views about nature and their reflections on their experiences in daily life are evident in their stories, poems, and songs.
• Indigenous science is part of the indigenous knowledge system practiced by different groups of people and early civilizations.
• Indigenous science

  • includes complex arrays of knowledge, expertise, practices, and representations that guide human societies in their enumerable interactions with the natural milieu: agriculture, medicine, naming and explaining natural phenomena, and strategies for coping with changing environments
• It includes complex arrays of knowledge, expertise, practices, and representations that guide human societies in their enumerable interactions with the natural milieu: agriculture, medicine, naming and explaining natural phenomena, and strategies for coping with changing environments (Pawilen, 2005)
• Ogawa (1995) claimed that it is collectively lived in and experienced by the people of a given culture.
• According to Cajete (2004), indigenous science includes everything, from metaphysics to philosophy and various practical technologies practiced by indigenous peoples both past and present.
• laccarino (2003) elaborated this idea by explaining that science is a part of culture, and how science is done largely depends on the cultural practices of the people.
• Indigenous beliefs also develop desirable values that are relevant or consistent to scientific attitudes as identified by Johnston (2000)
• indigenous beliefs also develop desirable values that are relevant or consistent to scientific attitudes as identified by Johnston (2000), namely:

  (1) motivating attitudes

  (2) cooperating attitudes;

  (3) practical attitudes;

  (4) reflective attitudes
• Pawilen (2005) explained that indigenous science knowledge has developed diverse structures and contents through the interplay between the society and the environment.
• Sibisi (2004) also pointed out that indigenous science provides the basics of astronomy, pharmacology, food technology, or metallurgy, which were derived from traditional knowledge and practices
• Pawilen (2006) developed a simple framework for understanding indigenous science. Accordingly indigenous science is composed of traditional knowledge which uses science process skills and guided by community values and culture
• CONCEPT OF INDIGENOUS SCIENCE:

  • Science Process Skills
  • Community Culture and Valus
  • Traditional Knowledge
• Indigenous science is composed of traditional knowledge practiced and valued by people and communities such as

  • ethno-biology
  • ethno-medicine
  • indigenous farming methods
  • and folk astronomy.
•  The Earth is revered as "Mother Earth." It is the origin of their identity as people.
• Human beings are stewards or trustee of the land and other natural resources. They have a responsibility to preserve it.
•  The land is a source of life. It is a precious gift from the creator.
•  Nature is a friend to human beings it needs respect and proper care
• The development of geometry was a product of necessity to preserve the layout and ownership of farmlands of the Egyptians living along the Nile River.
• Egypt was known to be a center of alchemy, which is known as the medieval forerunner of chemistry.
• Africans used three types of calendars: lunar, solar, and stellar, or a combination of the three