Leah Creaser is an Indigenous student leader focusing on fish biology.
Leah Creaser is bringing an Indigenous focus to biology at her university.
WOLFVILLE, N.S.-As Leah Creaser, a student at Acadia University and member of the Acadia First Nation, sat in her biology classes, she ended up being bewildered. It wasn't the materials being taught that confused her, but the materials she felt were being left out. For instance, in her first-year lab about plant identification, she wondered why the professor didn't mention how those plants had been used by the Mi'kmaq for centuries. In class after class, the Indigenous history of the plant world and science was never mentioned.
"I don't want to say I got mad, but I was definitely really frustrated to not even see any acknowledgements of any Indigenous peoples at all," Creaser told CBC News. ,
Although Creaser grew up off-reserve, while she was in high school, she began connecting with her Mi'kmaw culture and community, which included learning about the intricate Indigenous connection with plants.
By the time she reached her third year in the school, Leah was finding her voice on the matter. As a result, her professor suggested she create her own lab based on Mi'kmaw traditional knowledge as part of a research topic in her third year.
So she did. And the materials she wrote were so exceptional that she was invited to teach 120 students traditional plant knowledge she's learned from her band. And now, all first-year biology students at Acadia University learn about Mi'kmaw traditional knowledge as part of the required biology course at Acadia.
Creaser's lab, which is taught to small groups of students, gives them an overview of Mi'kma'ki and the distinct communities within it. She teaches them about medicines derived from plants, how to identify them, and their names.
"Decolonization and reconciliation, that is really what's happening here," Creaser told CBC news. She wants students to understand how Western science and Indigenous traditional knowledge can work together. She also feels students will have a better picture of how human behavior affects the natural world.
Leah's research at Acadia has included multiple projects in collaboration with the Mi'kmaq Conservation Group and Confederation of Mainland Mi'kmaq. She has also been president of the university's Indigenous Students Society and has been active on high-level university committees and councils.
Because of her skills, Creaser was chosen as one of 10 student leaders from across Canada for the prestigious 3M National Student Fellowship, which includes a cash award and a chance to meet the other recipients when public health restrictions allow.
Leah plans on pursuing a master's degree at Arcadia focusing on fish biology with the "Two-eyed" seeing perspective-seeing biology through the eyes of Western science and Indigenous tradition.
