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participation in research agenda, staff selection, and budget, community pay-
off, respect of cultural value, and informed consent (Hermes, 1999; Hudson &
Taylor-Henley, 2001). Additionally, when conducting research with reservation
communities, investigators must go through the tribal institutional review board
(IRB) process; an IRB approval from a mainstream institution is not sufficient
(Lomawaima, 2000). Although less has been written about working with urban pop-
ulations, where the benefit of tribal approval of the research is not possible, forming
a local advisory committee within the community and seeking institutional support
of local organizations is a good idea. Our work reflects these criteria and approaches.
Research context and communities involved . Our 3-way partnership is not two
2-way partnerships with one partner common to both. Although we describe the
Menominee and Chicago Indian communities separately, both communities have
worked together with AIC members coming to the Menominee reservation and
Menominee community members coming to the AIC for collaborative meetings.
Menominee community . The Menominee are the oldest continuous residents of
Wisconsin. Historically, their lands covered much of Wisconsin but were reduced,
treaty by treaty, until the present 95,000 hectares was reached in 1854. There are
4-5,000 Menominee living on tribal lands. Over 60% of Menominee adults have
at least a high school education and 15% have had some college. The present site
was forested then and now—there are currently about 88,000 hectares of forest.
Sustainable coexistence with nature is a strong value (Hall & Pecore, 1995). Hunting
and fishing are important activities and children are familiar with both by age 12.
The Menominee children in our project attend a tribal school. The tribal school
serves K-8 and has approximately 400 students in the school. Although exposing
children to the Menominee language is an important focus of the tribal school, the
vast majority of science instruction and everyday discourse is in English.
Urban Indian population . There are approximately 40,000 Indian people in Cook
county, many of whom were relocated to the area during the 1950s and 1960s dur-
ing the federal relocation era. The Chicago community is a very diverse intertribal
community with individuals representing more than 100 tribes across the country.
Native American children are scattered across a number of schools in the district
and are a minority in every classroom.
The AIC is the oldest urban Indian center in the country and serves as the
social and cultural center of the Chicago Indian community. Menominee and other
Wisconsin tribes are well represented at the AIC. The Chicago Indian community
faces many of the same problems that other inner city communities face, such as
high rates of poverty, lack of access to quality health care, poor schooling options,
low employment rates, issues surrounding drugs and alcohol, and high rates of
violence.
The Design Process: The Early Stages
The project idea was presented to community members as a critical need in the
community. There were three primary kinds of issues that were mentioned at the
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