Led by Native American resource managers, we have convened a working group across 20+ tribal entities in the north-central United States, with the goal of building consensus around the use of sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) to detect deep-past and recent populations of wild rice (manoomin in Ojibwe, psiŋ in Dakota, Zizania palustris and Z. aquatica) using lake sediment cores. Wild rice is of extremely high cultural and spiritual importance to many Indigenous people of the Laurentian Great Lakes region, as well as being a valuable traditional food and providing important habitat for waterfowl and other organisms. Because of its importance, any research involving wild rice must be tribally led, and outcomes designed to benefit the tribes (e.g., Matson et al. 2020). Wild rice is threatened by environmental degradation due to industrial processes and agriculture, so its protection can be a contentious regulatory and political issue in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, involving tribal, state, and federal agencies. The wild rice paleorecord has tremendous potential for detecting and tracking past changes in wild rice distributions. Until recently, however, proxies for wild rice were either ineffective (pollen, seeds), or low-throughput and thus not scalable to region-wide use (phytoliths). SedaDNA would supplement Indigenous knowledge and Western scientific methods to inform conservation, management, designation for protection, and the enhancement of cultural and historical records. In this presentation, we will describe how we are synthesizing output from facilitated online meetings with and presentations to tribal resource managers into a white paper providing guidance from these sovereign Nations to academic researchers, agencies, and policymakers on restrictions on the utilization of sedaDNA of wild rice, the leadership roles tribal entities should take in all research, and tribal priorities for the application of this technique.

Manoomin, the Ojibwe word for wild rice, grows in shallow lakes and streams and provides physical, spiritual, and cultural sustenance as a sacred food and relative for Indigenous peoples across the Great Lakes region of North America. Unfortunately, Manoomin has been declining due to multiple environmental stressors. In 2018, an interdisciplinary group from the University of Minnesota came together with natural resource managers from tribes and inter-tribal organizations to understand Manoomin within its socio-environmental context. This partnership grew despite a history fraught with settler colonial structures of knowledge production and commodification. Based on lessons learned from building this transformational partnership, this paper describes ten tenets for responsible research: 1) Honor Indigenous sovereignty and rights; 2) Address past and present harms; 3) Be on the path together with researchers and Indigenous partners; 4) Recognize, respect, and value Indigenous participation and intellectual labor; 5) Encourage the robust exchange of ideas; 6) Recognize that documents formalizing a relationship are not the whole relationship; 7) Make a plan for identifying and protecting sensitive Indigenous data; 8) Be prepared to navigate institutional obstacles; 9) Seek, support, and collaborate with diverse students; and 10) Actively listen and be open to different ways of engaging with the world. These lessons can serve as tools to form accountable partnerships that enable robust, nuanced, and effective environmental science, policy, and stewardship.

The Manoomin “wild rice” Science Camp program, a partnership between the University of Minnesota, the Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, and the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is an example of how a community-based participatory research project can become the catalyst for STEM learning for an entire community, providing effective learning opportunities for grades 5–12 and undergraduate students, elementary and secondary school teachers, and scientists from the reservation, tribal college, and university. Focusing the research on a resource (wild rice) that has important economic, cultural and spiritual meaning for a community, we promote place-based education and support the development of strong science/teacher/community partnerships. Key components of this approach are the Circle of Learning, a conceptual framework that emphasizes trust- and relationship-building between researchers, teachers, students, and American Indian community members, and the Seven Elements of STEM Learning, a pedagogical framework derived from an extensive review of the literature on American Indian education that focuses on a holistic approach to learning that emphasizes the whole student.