IGNITING ENTHUSIASM FOR SCIENCE AND GREEN TECHNOLOGY FOR INDIGENOUS YOUTH

By Aabawaagiizhigookwe, Toya Stewart Downey

When discussing how science can create a spark of excitement for students as they are doing experiments, their instructor, Antavia Paredes-Beaulieu, seems to get as excited as the youth do.

She’s eager to show visitors the shared workspace, demonstrate how a project might happen, and highlight the notebooks of the students in her class who find joy in actually doing a science project.

Paredes-Beaulieu, a Mille Lacs Band descendant who is a Green Tech Instructor at Migizi, began working at the Minneapolis-based organization this past January. Migizi supports the educational, social, economic and cultural development of Indigenous youth.

“I was in a doctoral program at the University of Minnesota for chemistry and I taught undergrad — analytic chemistry,” she said. “It was a great experience and I felt very supported, but I didn’t feel fed.”

She was “academically stimulated, but I felt like I lost sight of the work I wanted to leave behind as a legacy. I was feeling trapped, like I was in a bubble, only talking to scientists. So I decided to take a step aside.”

That “step aside” led her to Migizi, where she spends her days working with young people mostly from Minneapolis Public Schools and other students from across the Twin Cities.

The role she fills has been at Migizi for about four years as a career pathway program. However, now it focuses on high school students with the end goal being to get the students to high school graduation.

“It’s the job that my work and academic experience has prepared me for up until this point,” she said.

Kelly Drummer, president of the organization, sings praises about her colleague and the work she’s done since she joined the Migizi team.

“Antavia joined Migizi Communications in January and has been an amazing teacher, mentor, and leader in her short time here at Migizi,” said Drummer. “Her background in STEM education, green energy, and working with youth has helped to rebuild our Green Tech Program with over 15 youth participation in our [last] winter cohort which focused on energy.

“She has an amazing spring plan to focus on pollution, transportation and ecology which includes making a bicycle,” she added. “We are so grateful to have Antavia at Migizi and look forward to the exciting years ahead.”

Paredes-Beaulieu grew up in South Minneapolis and graduated from South High School. She earned an Associate's Degree from Minneapolis College, where she was a “Power of You scholar.” She continued her studies in chemistry at Metro State University as an Increasing Diversity in Environmental Careers Fellow, as well as abroad in Cuernavaca, Mexico, as a Gilman International Scholar. Paredes-Beaulieu has been a PhD student of chemistry at the University of Minnesota, where she helped teach undergraduate analytical chemistry labs and spent time researching and synthesizing porous nanoparticles for PFAS phytoremediation as a 3M Science and Technology Fellow.

“Growing up, I rarely, if ever, saw myself represented in STEM as a low-income Indigenous girl. Being raised by a single parent on welfare, and then being a single mother myself while studying chemistry, I have spent my life navigating barriers on behalf of myself and others in the pursuit of knowledge and stability. "While the barriers we all face as individuals do not have to define us, they alter how our goals and needs can be met.”

She added that as an Indigenous woman and scientist, she’s excited about the circle of support Migizi offers youth to help them navigate their goals and dreams according to their specific needs. She knows firsthand how important it is for young people to have someone or an organization like Migizi to help. She became a mom when she was 21 to her son, Kota, who is now 11. She is a first-generation college graduate.

“I always displayed talents in math and science — but maybe they weren’t always noticed,” she said. “That’s partially why I’m here — negotiating what success looks like and who it’s for.”

When she was younger, Paredes-Beaulieu felt like she was invisible, unseen, and not valued by society. She looked around and asked herself what she needed to do to feel valuable. The only thing she could think of was a college education. And she saw that as a way out.

She was raised in poverty and found herself as an adult in poverty, so she worked really hard. She had to sacrifice time with her son as she went to school. She maintained good grades to keep her grade point average up so she could qualify for scholarships. She also started to build a network of support.

“It felt like a race for a long time. Success for people who don’t have support or resources… it’s harder and may not come easy… the cost is higher. It’s a gamble when you don’t have anything else to fall back on.”

As she was finishing her four-year degree COVID-19 hit, the teacher's strike in Minneapolis schools happened, and George Floyd was murdered. With all that was happening she wasn’t sleeping well, because she lived near the precinct that was burned during the insurrections following Floyd’s murder and she didn’t feel safe in her home. She didn’t have a car and didn’t want to rely on public transportation due to COVID-19 the stores and post office around her were closed, or burned down, and so was the post office so life felt very difficult.

Still, she applied for graduate school at the U of M. She admits she didn’t know what she was doing, but kept moving forward. In grad school, she said she did, “cool stuff in chemistry to help the environment, and I used my skills as a scientist to be a good ancestor.”

She is grateful for the financial support she received from the Band’s scholarship program, because it helped her pay for childcare, not take on student loans, and “gave me time to study and be great.”

In her role, she develops a curriculum that is STEM-based and rooted in cultural teaching. Her lessons include teaching the scientific method as a paradigm from the medicine wheel, studying the ecosystem, and teaching lessons on osmosis and how road salts affect plants.

She tries to instill a sense of autonomy and independence and showing students that humans affect the environment and how that happens.

“It’s not all doom and gloom, but rather what we can do. I teach them that it is not all good and not all bad, but that there’s an equilibrium and how it balances out, and everything in the world is like that.” “We’re all connected and we’re all responsible for each other.”

To that end, she follows the career pathway philosophy. She has invited people in to talk to the students about jobs and scholarships. She teaches her students to be good stewards of the land and to save money and energy at home. “I'm hoping that it clicks… even if not now, but later. I want them to know there are so many resources out there.”