The ʔəshəliʔ ti qʷuʔ (Water is Alive) ArcGIS Hub is a desktop digital collaborative educational platform for the Snoqualmie Tribe and external organizations. It provides a space to engage the community, share geographic information on water quality, and tribal projects centered around environmental stewardship. Collaborators include Snoqualmie Tribe staff from the Environmental and Natural Resources Department, the Communications Department, and the Government Affairs and Special Projects Department.
At the start of the project, the idea for the hub came from a collaboration between the Snoqualmie Tribe and Bellevue College. The Tribe worked with professors from Bellevue College Chemistry Department to design a new curriculum to include a citizen science project collecting water samples in and around Lake Sammamish, a culturally significant site for the Snoqualmie people. To ensure students understood the importance of this work to the Snoqualmie Tribe, and the cultural importance of clean water for both wildlife and people, the Tribe created the ʔəshəliʔ ti qʷuʔ Hub.
The hub is designed as an interactive website where students can learn about the Snoqualmie Tribe and explore different facets of what water means to the Tribe. Sections include Water is Alive, Culture, Projects & Research, Habitat Restoration, Water Protectors, Tribal Governance, and Community Resources. Subjects are designed to take you down deeper and deeper rabbit holes of learning, and end with a call to action for readers. The hub incorporates imbedded story maps and page links to encourage the reader to interact with the material and foster curiosity and learning.
While originally designed for the chemistry students at Bellevue College, staff quickly realized that this was a resource that needed to be shared broadly to other student groups, partner organizations, and the public. This resource could not have grown into what it is now without help from the Snoqualmie Tribe’s Culture and Communications Departments, input from teams across ENR, and resources from partners found throughout the ʔəshəliʔ ti qʷuʔ (Water is Alive) Hub. To learn more, Please check out the ʔəshəliʔ ti qʷuʔ Hub to learn about our living waters.