KPU land-based learning course returns to decolonize biology
INDG/BIOL 1492 allows students to learn Indigenous perspectives
The course is being offered for the second time this semester. (Submitted)
The “Indigenous Perspectives in Biology” course is back at Kwantlen Polytechnic University this semester.
INDG/BIOL 1492 was created by KPU biology instructor Mika Mokkonen and Allison Hotti, an Indigenous studies instructor. The class centres Indigenous worldviews with western science adding additional context.
The course, first offered in the spring 2025 semester, was taught by instructors of different disciplines to bring ideas together: Lee Beavington, a learning strategist and interdisciplinary instructor, and Anthony Fernandes, an Indigenous studies instructor. Fernandes is now the sole instructor for the course.
Students learn from the land, Indigenous knowledge keepers, Elders, and community members about storytelling.
“Some students did drawings, wrote stories or poetry, and they shared in all sorts of different ways … how they were expressing their learning for the course,” Beavington says.
“It was less [about] learning about definitions or content, and more so how we can be critical thinkers and action takers in decolonization.”
The course includes regular outdoor-based learning, and Beavington adds there was originally a conventional final exam that is now a storytelling circle.
The change reflects a broader approach to the class, where sharing circles became a place not only to share what students learn, but to talk about how they are doing.
“It was a dream course to co-teach with [Fernandes]. He’s fabulous, … we sat in a circle every time [and] had check-ins that sometimes would go for as long as needed … to have a chance to check in [on everyone and ask] how they were doing,” Beavington says.
He hopes students leave the course with a newfound sense of community and connection to the land, and that it also prompts them to question how they can make learning more decolonial in their other courses.
“Taking a course like this means [students have] had an experience they’ll remember,” he says.
For Beavington, the course aims to help students think critically about decolonization and how they might put it into practice in their other classes. He says he hopes the future of this course will offer more immersive learning on the land.
“Let’s collaborate with local First Nations and engage in some reciprocity, some giving back, and learn from the knowledge keepers of those First Nations as part of that learning experience.”
