Noondawind: Co-Designed Dashboard for Indigenous Data Access and Environmental Policy Implementation

Abstract

Climate change, urbanization, and pollution threaten ecosystems and the treaty-guaranteed rights of Native Nations in the Great Lakes region. Tools that support culturally relevant implementation of policy and meaningful access to environmental data for sentinel species like Manoomin, wild rice, can help uphold treaty rights and ensure environmental stewardship. This paper presents Noondawind, an interactive data platform co-designed with Ojibwe partners to support community members and Tribal staff in interpreting and acting on environmental data and policy resources. We engaged in a participatory design process informed by and deeply integrated with Ojibwe worldviews. Our results highlight how participatory and culturally relevant co-design approaches can enhance environmental governance, support data sovereignty, and foster engagement with environmental data. We offer design implications and lessons learned for projects developing tools in partnership with Indigenous communities. These findings contribute to the growing field of Indigenous HCI and social justice literature in HCI.