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Article scientifique

The importance of place in indigenous science education.

In this issue of Cultural Studies of Science Education, Mack and colleagues(Mack et al.2011) seek to identify the necessary components of science education inIndigenous settings. Using a review of current research in informal science education inIndigenous settings, along with personal interviews with American educators engagedin these programs, the authors suggest some effective practices to use Indigenous ways ofknowing to strengthen science programming. For the past 4 years, we have been interestedin the importance of place in culturally relevant science education. We have explored therole of place and have used Gruenewald’s critical pedagogy of place (2003) to examine theimportance of place in a variety of Indigenous contexts. In response to Mack and col-leagues, in this paper we explore the importance of place as a means to reinhabituateIndigenous youth who live in urban, First Nation, and rural Costa Rican contexts.