American Indian Storytelling with Alice: (Abstract Only).

Montana is home to a large American Indian population and a rich history. The Indian Education for All (IEFA) Act, passed in 1999, reinforces the educational goals stated in Montana's 1972 Constitution that "every Montanan, whether Indian or non-Indian, be encouraged to learn about the distinct and unique heritage of American Indians in a culturally responsive manner." IEFA requires that American Indian education be integrated into "the education of each Montana citizen," making Montana the only state to mandate Indian education by law. We propose an integration of CS concepts into existing content standards using the IEFA curricula. To make these concepts approachable, we utilize Alice, a drag-and-drop programming environment. This software allows students to animate stories while learning programming techniques in a user-friendly way. Furthermore, Alice 2 allows customized models; in particular, we can create models specific to American Indian culture. In this poster, we present an overview of the Storytelling project and preliminary results, an example lesson plan, evaluation techniques, and a description of the 3D model creation process. With these lesson plans and customized models, we strive to broaden participation of students from rural and American Indian communities in CS and related fields.