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Mni Awanka (watching over water)

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Wide banner of the study system

Impact: As part of the Wopasi Pazo (showing your findings) group, Mni Awanka aims to develop a platform where the indigenous peoples of the Fort Laramie Treaty boundaries 1868 & 1851 area (North and South Dokota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana) can access water quality data for remeady, health and environmental justice, and education.

Overview The Wopasi Pazo group came together based on a mutual interest for indigenous approaches to environmental crises and collaborative action to replace colonizing hegemonic responses. The teams mission is societal transformation (incl. finding new decolonizing models, inherent soverenty, rights, and equitable decision making). Our sub-groups are on education (Wounspé), on building a large language model (LLM) for easier access to environmental assessment reports (He Sapa Makiyuta), and on accessibility of water quality data (Mni Awanka).

Whiteboard brainstorm (replace this) The Wopasi Pazo Working Group

Read the brief · View code · Explore data


Day 1 — Define the system & opportunities

Our product 📣

The goal of Mni Awanka is to work towards a dashboard on water quality in Sicangu Makoce (Rosebud Reservation), and the Fort Laramie Treaty boundaries 1868 & 1851 area (North and South Dokota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana). The aim of this dashbord is to facilitate access to water quality data for remeady, health and environmental justice, and education.

Our question(s) 📣

Questions for the dashboard: - What health hazardous (e.g. cancer causing) chemicals are present in the surface and sub surface water in the Fort Laramie Treaty boundaries 1868 & 1851 (North and South Dokota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana)? - How can we make a platform to ensure this data is accessible and usable for tribal nations for remeady, health-environmental justice, and education? (incl what your federal rights are)

Overarching questions: - What causes the fluctuation of the chemical consentrations? - What data is missing (and could be aquired through citizen science/sensors)?

Different perspectives: After some discussions and consultations we are thinking of working more with a river pollution simulation case as well as building a query model to work with the existing dashboards for easier decision making.


Day 2 — Data, indicators & prototyping

We are looking into two approaches. The data driven approach and the simulation model approach.

  • Data Driven Approach: For this approach we plan to start with the dataset from the Sicangu Climate Data Repository and develop a library which can be used to query the data for decision making.

  • Simulation Approach: For this approach we plan to build a simulation model of the Msuri river and potential pollution sources. Here the decision maker can play around with various polution scenarios and query what the drivers could be of the actural measured polution.

Preliminary results

Open Simulation Demo Tool

Final Share Out — Insights & transformation pathways

Team photo at start of Day 3 Wopasi Pazo team_photo.jpg

What’s next for Mni Awanka? 📣

  • Formalize Wopasi Pazo working group
  • Strengthen Simulation Tool
  • Develop geo-database query tool
  • Work with Wopasi Pazo team members on sharing, education, and integration

Wopasi Pazo Team

Name Role Contact GitHub
Phil Two Eagle Team Member Mni Awanka pd2eagle@gmail.com @XXX
Wai Allen Team Member Mni Awanka wai.allen@asu.edu @XXX
Barth Robinson Team Member Mni Awanka BFROBIN@HOTMAIL.COM @XXX
Esmee Mulder Team Member Mni Awanka esmee.mulder@colorado.edu @e-mulder
Sierra Hicks Team Member Wounspé sh2337@cornell.edu @XXX
Jennifer Martel Team Member Wounspé jennifer.martel@petaomniciye.org @XXX
Daryl Jones Team Member Wounspé daryljones16@gmail.com @XXX
Bob Newman Team Member Wounspéa robert.newman@und.edu @XXX
Keiko Nomura Team Member He Sapa Makiyuta Keiko.Nomura@colorado.edu @XXX
Alicia Swimmer Team Member He Sapa Makiyuta aliciaswimmer@gmail.com @XXX
Sylwia Zieba Team Member He Sapa Makiyuta sylwia.zieba@outlook.com @XXX
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Storage

Code Keep shared scripts, notebooks, and utilities in the code/ directory. Document how to run them (README, notebook cells, or comments) so collaborators can reproduce analyses.

Documentation Use the docs/ folder to publish public updates on this site. Longer internal notes can live in documentation/; summarize key points here to keep the public story fresh.


Cite & reuse

If you use or share materials from this sprint, please cite:

ESIIL Innovation Summit Team 1. (2025). Defining Tipping Points and Transformation. GitHub. https://github.com/CU-ESIIL/defining-tipping-points-and-transformation-innovation-summit-2025__1

License: CC-BY-4.0 unless noted. See dataset licenses on the Data page.