COMMUNITY CASE STUDY article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Social Movements, Institutions and Governance
This article is part of the Research TopicTransformative Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems Education: Signature Pedagogies, Core Competencies and Capacity Building for Systemic ChangeView all articles
Haudenosaunee and traditional ecological knowledge education for sustainable food systems: land-based educational pathways at Six Nations of the Grand River
Provisionally accepted
- 1McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
- 2Six Nations Polytechnic, Ohsweken, Canada
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Climate change impacts global food systems and while attention has shifted to solutions within some sectors, there is a need to engage in meaningful collaborations across all disciplines. Globally, Indigenous communities care for and protect a significant portion of the world's biodiversity despite only representing 6% of the global population. This emphasizes the significant role that Indigenous knowledges and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) have in protecting the earth and supporting collective food systems. Therefore, Six Nations Polytechnic, a post-secondary and Haudenosaunee-led school located at Six Nations of the Grand River in Ohsweken, Ontario, Canada, is collaborating with community partners and local Universities to create pathways for TEK education. Six Nations and surrounding Haudenosaunee communities have identified a need to support youth and future leaders in environmental science training that is grounded in cultural knowledge and methodologies. Current STEM programs are often in contrast to Indigenous perspectives, creating barriers to Indigenous youth in pursuing these educational pathways; however, Indigenous communities are disproportionately impacted by climate change. Through the leadership of Haudenosaunee scholars, Knowledge Holders, and researchers, including engineers, hydrologists, anthropologists, and health and nutrition scientists, our team has begun co-creating micro-credential courses, a STEM camp with a university course credit, and diploma programs that address community and ecological needs for sustainability. These courses are informed by Six Nations youth and university students' feedback. A major theme within this work is the intersection of knowledge to ensure sustainable food systems for Indigenous communities and beyond. Based on the TEK course development to date, we make policy recommendations to strengthen Indigenous led food sovereignty education and research that have valuable implications for interdisciplinary food systems education.
Keywords: Education, Haudenosaunee, indigenous food systems, Sustainable, traditional ecological knowledge
Received: 14 Sep 2025; Accepted: 01 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Monteith, Lickers Xavier, Jamieson and Martin-Hilll. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hiliary Monteith
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