Astrodigenous: an online portal for Indigenous sky-knowledge resources in Canada with Heidi White

Discover Astrodigenous, an online portal centering Indigenous sky-knowledge resources in Canada, developed by a team of educators and academics using Django and aiming to bridge the gap in educational systems.

Key takeaways
  • Astrodiginous is an online portal for Indigenous sky-knowledge resources in Canada.
  • The portal uses Django framework to create a search engine for educational purposes.
  • The website aims to center Indigenous knowledge and perspectives, acknowledging the lack of non-Western perspectives in educational systems.
  • The platform is run by a team of primarily K-12 educators and academics from Indigenous studies and geography, with a small portion of the team members having background in web development.
  • Django’s open source nature and extensive documentation allowed an outsider like Heidi White to quickly adapt and develop the platform.
  • The team has developed a tagging system and intends to integrate Stellarium Web, an open source software project, to allow teachers to visualize Indigenous astronomy knowledge in their classrooms.
  • The platform aims to provide teachers with resources and a mini search engine to facilitate the teaching of Indigenous astronomy knowledge.
  • The site has received funding and is looking for additional support to expand its database and tagging system.
  • Feedback from Indigenous educators and academics is crucial to ensure the platform accurately represents Indigenous knowledge and perspectives.