Mi'kmaw student creates lab at Acadia to share traditional knowledge with future scientists

All first-year biology students at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., now learn about Mi'kmawtraditional knowledgethanks to the efforts of onestudent who was tired of seeing Indigenous perspectives ignored in science.

Leah Creaser, a member of the Acadia First Nation, said she often felt out of place and uncomfortable in her university biology classes.

She remembers taking afirst-year lab about plant identificationand waiting for her professor to talk about how theMi'kmaq have been using those same plants for thousands of years. It never happened.

"I don't want to say I got mad, but I was definitely really frustrated to not even see any acknowledgements of any Indigenous peoples at all," said Creaser, 26, who is now in her fourth year andpresident of the university's Indigenous Students Society.

"The fact that the school flies the flag, puts their acknowledgements at the end of their emails, like that's not enough."

When her professor Juan Carlos Lpez suggested she create her own lab based onMi'kmawtraditional knowledge as part of a research topicin her third year, she said yes right away and then took it a step further.

Creaser wrote the lab from her own perspective,and last fall agreed to teach 120 first-year students some of the traditional plant knowledgeshe'slearnedfrom her band.

Her lab is now part of the required core biology courseat the university.

"Decolonization and reconciliation, that is really what's happening here," said Creaser.

Last month, shewas chosen asone of 10 student leaders from across Canada for the prestigious 3M National Student Fellowship, which includes a cash awardand a chance to meet the other recipients in Ottawa when public health restrictions allow.

The importance ofEtuaptmumk

Creaser's lab, which is taught to small groups of students over two weeks, gives budding biologists an overview ofMi'kma'ki and the distinct communities withinit. She talksabout the medicines that are derived from plants, how to identifythem, andtheir names in both Mi'kmaw and English.

She wants students to understand the concept of Etuaptmumk, or two-eyed seeing, and how Western scienceand Mi'kmawtraditional knowledge can work together.

In the lab, she also acknowledges Jeff Purdy, a councillor from the Acadia First Nation. As she developed the lab, Creaserjoined Purdy on teaching walks to gain knowledgeabout nativeplants and their significance.

Creaser grew up off-reserve in the Wolfville area, and began connecting more deeply with her Mi'kmaw culture and community when she was in high school.

"For me, going on a teaching walk with him, it meant a lot," she said."This is knowledge that has been passed down through generations and generations, and it's for me to take on and hold and not alter."

Creaser and Lpez say including Mi'kmaw traditionalknowledge in university courses willmakefor better science becausenew biologistswill have a more complete picture of how human actions impact the natural world.

"It's more respectful, more sustainable, all the things that we talk about [with] conservation and nature. It's already there. We have to actually embrace it,"Lpezsaid.

Creaser is earning an honours in fish biologyand plans to begin her master's at Acadia next year, but her university journey has been anything but easy.

She had to take the first-year plant identification lab twice to improve her mark, and was struggling with a particular report the second time around when a conversation with Lpez changed everything.

Lpez noticed she was wearing a medicine pouch around her neckand asked her about it, which eventually led him to suggesting Creasercreate her own lab.

"She stuck it out," said Lpez, who nominated Creaser for the 3M award. "She decided to continue and that's the part that I think is really important is that she was persistent in spite of the adversity."

He'sbeen teaching in the Department of Biology at Acadia since 2014 and said he'd been eager toincorporate Mi'kmawperspectivesin his classesbut had struggled to make it happen.

In one of his labs, Lpeztakes students to the mud flatsin Wolfville to explore the landscape and learn how the Acadiansbuilt a system of dikes to keep the saltwater at bay. After oneclass, he remembers a couple students came to his office and asked why he'd made no mention of the Mi'kmaq.

He told them, "You are right.This is importantand I find it even more important that you are challenging me on it."

Now, when Lpez teaches thatlab he begins with a Glooscap story.

"I'm a better, more aware person just because of what she has taught me," he said of Creaser.

Creaser, meanwhile, has guest-lectured in other science classes at Acadia and plans to continue teaching her lab as long as she's at the university.

The factstudents will be learning from her lab, and building on it,even after she's gone hasn't really sunk in yet, she said.

"I ... did it for every Indigenous student who's sitting in those seats because we need to see more of that," she said. "There needs to be the acknowledgement, the meaningful acknowledgement."