Looking after country with fire: Aboriginal burning knowledge with Uncle Kuu by Victor Steffensen has been chosen to be read to Year 3 students to share  from the picture book as to how the life cycles of plants and animals become regerminated and protected from fire (AC9S3U01) in addition to what relationships and predictions can be made from observations regarding life cycles with the use of fire (AC9S3I01) (ACARA, 2024).  

                Learning about Indigenous science allows students to have the opportunity to be exposed to multiple world views that are not only dominated by the views of Western science. The benefit of such inclusion is that it allows intercultural knowledge to be harnessed and different perspectives to be considered in an attempt to solve the problems through science in our shared world without the narrow-mindedness of cognitive manipulation to discredit knowledge and values from other sources (Sparkes & Piercey, 2015). In essence, the alternate viewpoints that sit on opposite ends should be intertwined together with the guiding mantra for science through Indigenous ways to “survive and coexist in nature to live with the mysteries of the natural world’ with the Western way of “gaining knowledge for knowledge’s sake to eradicate the mystery” (Sparkes & Piercey, 2015); the aim here is to integrate both ways of thinking for students to look for the best holistic conclusions when learning science.

                Nonetheless, reading from a picture book has a preliminary connection to story sharing while the context of the book creates a connection to land links; the notion of story sharing and land links are ways of learning in Indigenous culture which brings us a step closer to shared understanding (Yunkaporta, 2009).