"Our project will investigate how Native science and perspectives can be integrated into Western approaches to science in order to create sustainable and decolonialized research. While Western science typically considers the land as below or unrelated to the individuals who live on it, Native science emphasizes the connection of individuals with their surroundings and regards people as integral to the ecological networks within which they reside. The goal of our GCC course is to examine the relationships between indigenous languages and land and to understand the power of place-based knowledge. Our project aims to investigate a specific facet of the relationship between land and knowledge by exploring how Native science (ie. traditional place-based knowledge) and Western scientific practices can conflict, coexist, or collaborate. We are particularly interested in determining how Native perspectives and Western scientific research projects can be integrated and how this combination of perspectives can decolonize current research."