Askenootow STEM

Earlier this week—the date the United States formally recognizes as both Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Christopher Columbus Day—17 North American Indigenous artists came together for “Encoded,” an unsanctioned AR exhibition hiding within the Met American Wing’s famed artworks and sculptures.⁠
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Museum visitors can scan QR codes with their phone and point the phone’s camera at select artworks, like Thomas Sully’s monumental portrait of Queen Victoria (1819–1901) or landscapes by Thomas Cole, and an alternate, digital artwork appears.⁠
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“The American Wing is a room of stories often told without us,” Nicholas Galanin, a participant in “Encoded,” told ARTnews. “It is a cathedral built to worship an imagined nation, painted over stolen land, one that names ideas of beauty but not the cost. When I walk through there, I feel the weight of how these institutions shape a vision of America that depends on our disappearance.”⁠
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Read more about “Encoded”: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/an-indigenous-takeover-of-the-met-asks-who-should-be-writing-art-history-1234757699/

Hidden beneath the jungle canopy of Tikal, Guatemala, scientists discovered a 2,000-year-old marvel: a water purification system so advanced it rivals modern tech.

The ancient Maya used volcanic minerals like zeolite and quartz—still used in today’s filters—to purify their drinking water. These minerals, layered in reservoirs, removed toxins and pathogens from runoff water.

They didn’t just build temples and calendars—they engineered public health systems centuries ahead of their time.
What we thought we invented… the Maya mastered long ago.

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded today for the development of metal-organic frameworks, molecular sponges with applications in gas storage, water purification and more: https://www.compoundchem.com/2025/10/08/2025nobelchemistry/

🎉 You’re invited!
Join us for the Education Symposium: Navigating Multi-Tiered System of Supports — High-Cost & Inclusive Education.

📍 Treaty 4 Governance Centre, Fort Qu’Appelle, SK
🗓 Wednesday, October 29, 2025
🕘 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

This full-day gathering brings together Lifespeakers, First Nations elected leadership, legal representatives, school division directors, Tribal Council partners, and FHQTC staff to collaborate on supports that are high-needs, culturally grounded, and inclusive.

✔️ Learn strategies for MTSS in high-cost contexts
✔️ Share promising practices and legal considerations
✔️ Strengthen partnerships for student success

📩 Questions? Contact Devin Akapew @ [email protected]

Please share widely—all Administrators, School Division Staff, Leadership, Learning Resource Teachers, and Parents are especially encouraged to attend.

Check this out!

📣 Free Event 🆓

Interested in - - 🎓 - - 🧐
If you're in Saskatoon - check this out! 👀
Register here: https://bit.ly/4p1b7bS

Periodic Table Ring 💍😍

The eyeball planet - This is the eyeball planet. Fifty light-years from Earth, locked in a frozen orbit around a dim red dwarf, lies LHS 1140b — a world unlike anything in our solar system. Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists now believe this strange planet may hold something extraordinary: liquid water. Imagine a giant icy world, nearly twice the size of Earth, with one melted eye staring endlessly at its star — an ocean surrounded by a shell of permanent frost.

🐝 When a queen dies, a decision must be made.
Not in panic. Not in fear.
But with purpose.

The hive doesn’t collapse. It adapts.
From a sea of ordinary larvae, a few are chosen. Not because they’re special. But because they could be.

They’re fed something extraordinary: royal jelly—the nectar of transformation.
And that’s where the magic begins.

This isn’t fate. It’s nurture.
One larva, fed with care, becomes what no one expected—a queen.
Not born. Made.

She’ll live longer. Rebuild order.
And where there was silence, she’ll bring rhythm again.

Because in a hive, crisis doesn’t create chaos—it creates leadership.
🧡

And maybe there’s something in that for us, too:
That greatness isn’t always a matter of blood or title.
It’s what happens when someone ordinary is given extraordinary support.

Let’s feed each other better futures. 🍯
Let’s raise more queens.