Abstract:
Indigenous knowledge is at risk of being lost in many parts of the world. It is important to
find ways to preserve it for both cultural and practical reasons, since it is often well-suited
to addressing local needs using available resources. If indigenous knowledge can be
incorporated into school science curricula, it can also provide familiar contexts within which
to learn scientific concepts, as well as helping the younger generation to recognise its value.
The purpose of this study was to identify indigenous knowledge that could be related to
physics concepts, with a view to integrating it into school curricula. Twenty-nine senior
citizens from Chókwé, a rural village in Mozambique, volunteered to participate in two sets
of in-depth interviews. The first set of interviews was individual and unstructured in order to
explore which aspects of indigenous knowledge might be related to physics concepts. The
second set was semi-structured and conducted in small groups in order to probe
participants’ understanding and application of the identified physics concepts. The results
showed that participants had indigenous knowledge that was useful to them in their daily
lives and that were applications of thermal physics, static electricity and mechanics
concepts. In some cases participants’ explanations were aligned to physics explanations, in
some cases they were similar to students’ alternative conceptions identified in the
literature, and in other cases they referred to supernatural phenomena.
