The Story of TASIK
“People raised in this environment were at home with the sea. They played in it as soon as they could walk steadily, they worked in it, they fought on it. They developed great skills for navigating their waters—as well as the spirit to traverse even the few large gaps that separated their island groups.”
- Epeli Hau’ofa, "We Are The Ocean"
The project acronym TASIK tells a significant story spanning space and time. Tasik means ‘sea’ or ‘saltwater,’ ancestral to all the Indigenous languages represented by the areas where this project will take place, such as tasi ‘sea, ocean, beach’ in Finoʼ CHamoru (Guam); sehd ‘ocean, sea’ in mahsen en Pohnpei (FSM); and lǫjet ‘ocean’ in Kajin M̧ajeļ (RMI). The ocean is a material and metaphorical connector of Pacific/Oceanic peoples and resists full capture by imperial boundaries.
This project resounds Hauʻofaʻs vision, and is “growing TASIK” in multiple senses: growing knowledge associated with waters, growing networks of interconnections within and across island groups, and growing the view of the Pacific that focuses on the vastness, wealth, and largeness of the Pacific universe—in part captured in the myths, legends, oral traditions, and cosmologies of sea-rich places.
Building from PREL’s research into STEM teaching and learning in Indigenous contexts, TASIK continues to explore the potentials of effective intergenerational, informal learning for both deepening and strengthening cultural knowledge and bridging divides between indigenous knowledge and STEAM. These projects take seriously the wide range of pressing and critical needs of Micronesian communities and the barriers that Micronesian, rural, remote youth face in entering a STEAM workforce, and seek to open space for new conditions to emerge.
Our Guiding Questions
Our questions center around the efficacy of intergenerational, informal science learning processes to engage youth and sustain youth interest in Indigenous Knowledge and STEAM. These questions help to guide our formal research, as well as our community relationships and products, to think about how the knowledge we build can initiate and strengthen networks seeking to integrate indigenous knowledge and STEAM pathways toward sustained community wellbeing.
We extend our deepest gratitude to those who contributed to the initial development of TASIK, and who continue to guide our questions and engagement through the years.
To what extent does youths’ participation in STEAM-based storytelling and story exploration lead to increases in these youths’ engagement and interest in STEAM and self-efficacy over time?
Describing Experiences: What are the characteristics of youth engagement in STEAM-based storytelling and story exploration in the Pacific Islands context?
Design Thinking: What features of the design process—including the interactions with elders as educators—are the most important for sustaining youth engagement?
Developing Knowledge: To what extent does youths’ engagement in storytelling and story exploration generate STEM understanding and innovations within their local contexts?
Decision Making: To what extent does engagement in STEAM generated by storytelling and story exploration impact youths’ decision making and self-advocacy?