Mount Allison student creates science graphic in Mi'kmaw language
Translating science into different languages important, student William Millar Chapman says
For a New Brunswick university student, a final project turned out to be the perfect mix of two passions: biology and learning languages.
William Millar Chapman recently finished his undergraduate degree in environmental science at Mount Allison University in Sackville, where he was the lead author on a paper published in the science journal Facets.
"I have a pretty deep interest in languages," said Chapman, who is from Ottawa and not Indigenous himself. "I like learning languages." He also has certifications in French and Norwegian, he said.
He studied Mi'kmaw when he enrolled at Mount Allison and after starting work in an aquatic science lab at the school, he got the idea for a project.
"So bringing those two interests of mine together, and that's what eventually led to this work."
Chapman said he read several studies that found speakers of an Indigenous language are more likely to trust science when it's communicated in their own language.
"I think it's all about community engagement," he said.
"The community deserves to be involved in the stuff that's going on at universities. And part of that is effective communication."
He decided to make a Mi'kmaw infographic about the mercury cycle, called Ta'n tel-liaq aliktewey qasawo'q in the language. The graphic shows, with both pictures and writing, how mercury moves through water, air, soil and marine life in the environment.
Chapman said mercury contamination has had an impact on Mi'kmaw communities, including contamination at Boat Harbour in Nova Scotia, near Pictou Landing First Nation.
"It accumulates its way up the food chain, and it can have very serious health effects."
When putting together the infographic, Chapman worked with his Mi'kmaw teacher, Gordon Francis. While Chapman himself is not Indigenous, he said he is "very grateful for all those who have shared their knowledge with him."
"I'd come up with a couple ideas using words, word parts, making new interpretations of old words or trying to figure out how we could use words that we already knew to mean or to reference these concepts," Chapman said.
"It took us a couple of months to get the infographic to where it was."
Chapman said an important part of the project was engaging in the "Anglo centrism that Western science is operated on" by trying to not communicate everything in English.
"So one of the hardest parts is trying to break out of all the stuff that we knew, stuff that we had learned in the lab that maybe we should be thinking differently about."
Francis, who lives in Miramichi and is originally from Elsipogtog First Nation, said he's been teaching Chapman the Mi'kmaw language for several years through an online course he runs. From the start, Frkancis said, he knew Chapman was different from his other students because he grasped the language so well.
"He must have an affinity for languages. We were communicating in Mi'Kmaw by text, he and I. That's how good he is."
When asked to help with the project, Francis said he agreed right away.
"I thought it was a very interesting and novel idea," he said.
Francis said there are no Mi'kmaw words for much of what was on the infographic, but the ideas and concepts of what was happening existed in the language, so it was a matter of talking it out and finding the right words to use.
"It was very challenging and very satisfying, very rewarding. And it was just a joy to work with William."
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With files from Clare MacKenzie