S05-E34: First Nations star knowledge predates Western astrophysics by millennia

Before we head off, because we're nearly at time, Duane, I'd like to understand how, from your perspective, how you believe this can be brought into the Australian curriculum and how an understanding of the sophistication of First Nations sciences and their applications can be brought in.

Well, this is something, fortunately, we've been doing for a number of years.

So we created a number of modules for different year levels across all subjects through the Australian National Curriculum, and now we're doing this through the Victorian and New South Wales Curriculum as well.

So I think one of the great things, the great hooks about this, and as we spoke about at the very beginning, trying to challenge the continuous negative view and perception of anything indigenous in the media, it's almost always seen as something negative.

There's always some kind of detriment.

There's always a deficit.

And that's frustrating because this is knowledge and culture and history that should be celebrated.

And what ties into the education side is what got me motivated to do this in the first place.

I know being an astronomer that everybody loves astronomy.

Of all the sciences, it's arguably the most popular.

It's often seen as the most complicated.

If you ask people, you know, who's the smartest person in the world? Chances are very good they're going to name an astronomer, right? So people love that.

So if you can combine astronomy with indigenous knowledge and history and culture, you're going to create... a different angle for this.

It's no longer something that's a deficit.

It's something that's a huge benefit.

It's an advancement.

It's something people are fascinated by.

It doesn't bring the astronomy down.

It elevates astronomy and the traditional knowledge.

And since most people think astrophysics, you know, if somebody says, what do you do? And you say, you're an astrophysics professor.

I'll tell you what, that's about the best job title you can give somebody next to maybe an astronaut, right? And trust me, it works, right?

So in the same...

That's another yarn, Dwayne.

In the same frame, when you start talking about indigenous astronomy, people are like, oh, what's that? And that's the hook.

So getting people excited about that, the other initiatives that we're doing on the education side is creating tour programs or working with Aboriginal land councils and organizations to to assist them in building tourism programs.