Mni Awanka (watching over water)
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).
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.
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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.
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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
Final Share Out — Insights & transformation pathways
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.