In a third-grade classroom at Tuba City Elementary School, students explored mathematics, science, engineering, and design through an unexpected lens: Navajo weaving.
Students analyzed traditional weaving patterns, designed their own creations on graph paper, built miniature looms, and examined STEM concepts embedded within a longstanding Diné tradition. Along the way, they linked classroom learning with family knowledge, community traditions, and cultural practices many already knew from home.
"Students made personal and family connections to weaving traditions and began recognizing that their culture contains important forms of knowledge," teacher Diana Hosteen wrote in her reflection on the project. "When students saw their culture reflected in the classroom, they became more engaged, motivated, and confident in their abilities."
Hosteen's classroom was one of many transformed through Indigenous Knowledge to Grow Successful STEM Teachers (IKGSST), a professional learning program developed through a partnership between the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) and Fort Lewis College.
The three-year initiative brought together educators from schools serving Indigenous students across the Four Corners region to explore how Indigenous knowledge, community expertise, and culturally sustaining teaching practices can strengthen STEM education and student success.
Teachers participated in graduate coursework through FLC and attended three intensive professional development experiences over the course of a year. Together, they identified strategies to link classroom learning with the knowledge students bring from their homes, families, and communities.
For Marishell Saga, a special education teacher at Tséhootsooí Middle School in Shiprock, New Mexico, the experience transformed her approach to teaching. Originally from the Philippines, Saga serves a student population that is approximately 96% Navajo.
"When I came here, I really had no knowledge about Navajo culture," Saga said. "The greatest takeaway was learning how to integrate Indigenous knowledge into my teaching."
As part of the program, Saga invited community experts into her classroom, incorporated discussions about the cultural significance of snakes into literacy lessons, integrated science and math concepts through fry bread making, and organized plant walks where students learned from parents and grandparents about traditional plants and their uses.
The impact was immediate.
"Some of my students are really very shy at first," Saga said. "But when you're able to connect their cultural knowledge, it's like, 'Oh, I know this.' They're able to really talk about it. The sense of belonging was there."
Chiara Cannella, professor and interim dean of the School of Education at Fort Lewis College, said the program challenged educators to think differently about where knowledge comes from.
"We're starting the conversation with the understanding that community members, families, and ancestors have sophisticated scientific and mathematical knowledge," Cannella said. "When students see that their knowledge and their communities are valued, they become more engaged learners."
Teachers in the program represented a wide range of grade levels and subject areas, from elementary classrooms to high school science and middle school computer science. Throughout the year, participants developed classroom innovations, tested new approaches, reflected on student outcomes, and refined their practice through an ongoing cycle of learning and application.
Wren Walker Robbins, co-designer and external evaluator for the program, said that structure was a key factor in its success.
"This particular iteration of trying to do this work was very, very successful," she said. "Probably some of the most successful work that I've done in my professional career."
Walker Robbins said the program's collaborative design created a supportive cohort of educators who could learn from one another while testing new approaches to teaching.
"It was about creating connections to family and community," she said. "When you give students a chance to do STEM, and they see their own identity reflected in that process, it creates more engagement."
The partnership also reflects FLC's longstanding commitment to serving Indigenous communities and supporting education throughout the region. Fort Lewis College's relationships with schools, educators, Tribal Nations, and communities across the Four Corners helped create a program that felt locally rooted and responsive to regional needs.
"When we think about Native nation building and educational sovereignty, our role is not to come in with an agenda," Cannella said. "Our role is to ask how we can support communities in accomplishing the goals they have for their students."
For Walker Robbins, FLC was a natural partner because of its established relationships with educators and communities across the Southwest.
"Let's work with teachers that Fort Lewis College has all of this beautiful connection with and already has a beautiful reputation of working with," she said.
Across classrooms, grade levels, and communities, participants reported similar outcomes: students were more confident, more engaged in learning, and more willing to share their ideas when their identities and experiences were reflected in the classroom.
For Hosteen, the experience reinforced a lesson that extended beyond STEM instruction.
"This project showed that meaningful learning happens when culture, community, and education are connected together."