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Bridging Two Worlds

In Inuit culture, the northern lights carry a different meaning. Inuit peoples believe the lights represent dead ancestors playing soccer in the skies with a walrus head as a ball, igniting the aurora. The Inuit refer to the aurora as “arsarnerit.”

“That’s how we relate to this phenomenon,” said Karla Jessen Williamson, a member of the Inuit people and an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan. “It’s very different from that of a scientific approach, where they’re an object and objectified in a way that we as human beings have really nothing to do with them.”

Jessen Williamson is working with APL as an outreach consultant to Indigenous communities for EZIE, helping to bring scientific-based learning together with Indigenous education and the physical connections Indigenous communities have with our universe.

Science lessons at the school were crafted in collaboration with and IEI founders Nancy Maryboy and David Begay. The lessons cover subjects such as how the Sun is studied from Earth and the impacts of space weather on our planet, all while maintaining the values and relationships with the subjects that the students hold through Indigenous teachings.

Before jumping into EZIE, Tom Tomas, a fifth- and sixth-grade teacher at the Little Singer Community School, guides his students through their relationships with Earth and the Sun, or “��ó��DzԲ���’éí” in the Navajo language. For example, students learned about the links between the Sun and their shadows, which represents a person’s conscience in Navajo culture.

During the school year, students shift from those established relationships to more abstract concepts such as space magnetic fields and solar weather.

“What we do is maintain the relationships and the values and respect for the Sun, while at the same time studying it as a natural system,” said Tomas.

Eventually, students study NASA heliophysics missions such as EZIE and Parker Solar Probe, which is flying closer to the Sun than any spacecraft in history to study the solar wind at its source. EZIE team members regularly engage with students and teachers online through webinars and messaging apps. For example, during one lesson, Mosavi-Hoyer spoke to the class about EZIE, and students created a model of an EZIE satellite with labels describing parts of the spacecraft.

“Students are making things and sharing them with their fellow students,” said Maryboy. “It's amazing to see them come alive this way.”

During the three-day workshop, APL staff shared information on EZIE and Parker Solar Probe — which makes the first of its three closest approaches to the Sun on Dec. 24 — while learning about the cultures of the Hopi and Navajo tribes.

“The workshop provided a wonderful opportunity to learn about Indigenous communities and connect students to a NASA mission through the EZIE-Mag program,” said Mosavi-Hoyer.

Why EZIE Outreach Matters

As the EZIE mission approaches launch, team members will start rolling out EZIE-Mags to schools in Indigenous and underserved communities, providing low-cost tools capable of delivering high-quality science in spaces with fewer opportunities.

“EZIE-Mag lets educators place scientific equipment into a classroom where students wouldn’t normally have access and get them thinking they have an opportunity to participate in a NASA mission,” said Rob Barnes, the EZIE ground systems engineer at APL who helped create the EZIE-Mag.

For the Inuit people, who inhabit the Arctic and subarctic regions, the aurora are a part of their daily lives. APL’s Jesper Gjerloev, project scientist for the EZIE mission, said it’s only appropriate that Indigenous cultures such as the Inuit should play an important role in EZIE’s outreach.

“Indigenous communities have a rich recorded history and culture surrounding phenomena like the aurora,” said Gjerloev. “Our EZIE outreach initiatives have been created to ensure these teachings are not only remembered, but also linked to modern science.”