BridgingRoots in Tuk
The BridgingRoots project aims to create an application to be used by the Mangilaluk School in the remote Indigenous community in the Canadian Arctic in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories. The application focuses on language and culture revitalization and codesigned alongside students and teachers of the school.
Tuktoyaktuk (“Tuk”) is a hamlet of about 900 people (and 100 houses!) set on the incredibly beautiful shores of the Arctic Ocean in the Canadian north – in fact, the only community on the Artic Ocean that can be reached by road in Canada! Its people are Indigenous (Inuit), also called Inuvialuit, and traditionally speak Inuvialuktun.
This page of the BridgingRoots project showcases the work that has been done by the entire INSPIRE BridgingRoots team who set out on a Northern journey from May 28 – June 5 with goals of more relationship building, consulting with the wider Tuktoyaktuk community, and having personal feel for the community they have been working with.
Explore below to find out more about the project’s current trajectory, trip impressions, and photos!
Staying Strong
With October coming to an end and December right around the corner, our team has switched our focus to prototyping and coding to get the development of the app on the move. Since the start of the project, our foremost challenge has been finding content for the app....
COMMUNITY PARTNER
The Mangilaluk School is the town’s K-12 school which has approximately 240 students and approximately 20 high school students! The school curriculum features traditional knowledge and language courses. The team was welcomed by students and teachers alike with open arms and a sense of curiosity.
The BridgingRoots team has been working in collaboration with 4 students and 1 teacher from the Mangilaluk School since September 2023. The trip to Tuktoyaktuk allowed the team to introduce the project to the rest of the school including teachers, students, and parents.
After hosting several design sessions with students and brainstorming sessions with teachers, desired features were prototyped and validated. BridgingRoots will be made to supplement the developing Inuvialuktun curriculum for various grade groups.
Teachers and students alike will review and test each new feature to ensure it aligns with the desired design and supplements current teaching methods seamlessly in a way that engages the students.
TRIP PHOTOS
TEAM MEMBERS
Jon Edwards
Computer Science
Valeriya Savchenko
Software Engineering
Tom Jing
Computer Science