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Pauline Streckfuss

Pauline Streckfuss
What was your personal motivation behind participating in this project?

I was asked to participate in this project because I am an Aboriginal person, as well as a Science teacher and I thought it was a good opportunity to teach children about Aboriginal culture.

How did you go about making links with your local Aboriginal community?

Being an Aboriginal person, I knew it was important for us to go and talk to the Elders first, to make our first initial link. So having those connections already, it was quite easy for us to do that.

How has your view or perspective changed on the impact of Aboriginal beliefs and culture on scientific understanding?

My perspective has not changed at all and if anything, it's just more important for Aboriginal culture to be taught to high schools.

What strategies would you use in developing further teaching units to address Aboriginal perspectives in Science?

First of all, I would use more Aboriginal people in the classroom. They have the knowledge, so why not use it. The other thing I'd like to see is for the whole school to take on some sort of  in-servicing, if you could call it that, on Aboriginal culture, so that when they get into the classroom they have more of an understanding of the people.

What barriers did you encounter in trying to undertake this project?

The only barriers that I encountered was time-wise, actually trying to get things written, as well as full-time work, as well as family.

Where to from here? What will you do in future to plan for and implement Aboriginal perspectives content into your Years 7-10 science teaching-learning program?

I believe what we did was quite good and if more of the same lesson plans were given to put into units, that would be good. I think getting teachers involved in a project like this, it would be better to give them more time so that they can actually complete things and not feel like they're rushed. The other thing that I was particularly mindful of and if I was doing this again, to repeat it, was to involve the Aboriginal community always, especially the Elders, so that they know what's happening and you can use them in the classroom.

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