Welcome to the OLC NIFA IDC repository, part of the USDA-NIFA IDC project at Oglala Lakota College. This repository serves as the central hub for our group, hosting our project description, codebase, datasets, and more.

• Project: Integrated Data Cube (IDC)/Cubedynamics for Tribal environmental data
• Focus: Agriculture, water, land, geology, soils, and ecosystem monitoring
• Goal: Support Tribal sovereignty through data access and tools
• Built by: Oglala Lakota College in collaboration with Daear Consulting, LLC and CIRES (CU Boulder) Researchers
• Status: Active development (2025-2026)

Communities across the globe are navigating an era of profound environmental disruption, including the contamination of air and water, declining freshwater availability, habitat loss, and an accelerating climate crisis. For many Tribal Nations, these challenges are compounded by the legacies of colonization and systemic inequities that have limited access to environmental data and decision-making tools.

Tribal peoples bring generations of knowledge and enduring relationships with their homelands that offer critical insights for sustaining ecosystems. Traditional ways of understanding the world that are rooted in balance, respect, and reciprocity hold lessons for all of us. This work supports Tribal sovereignty and resilience.

The Integrated Data Cube (IDC) initiative seeks to unite these strengths with the capabilities of modern Earth data science. Our team is creating a flexible, community-driven data and workflow platform that enables Tribal Nations to gather, interpret, and apply environmental information in ways that align with their own priorities and governance systems. It is both a research infrastructure and a learning environment designed to expand local expertise in data analysis and evidence-based decision-making while also integrating principles of traditional knowledge systems and inherent Tribal sovereignty.

To build geospatial data analytics tools in collaboration with Tribal partners and to equip communities with tools to visualize and interpret their own environmental data that help to ensure responses to ecological change are guided by Tribal leadership, knowledge, and values.

• Increased Tribal Access to Data Science: Making EDS accessible supports Tribal-led environmental research and resource management.

• Capacity Building and Training: The DataCube will serve as a teaching and learning tool for Oglala Lakota College, students, Elders, and community members, expanding technical and data literacy skills.

• Stronger Environmental and Climate Resilience: With improved data and tools, Tribes can develop more effective, self-determined responses to environmental challenges, ensuring long-term sustainability.

• Our project centers Tribal self-determination and the integration of Tribal Knowledges with state-of-the-art Earth data tools to create lasting, meaningful change.

• Building initial data cube infrastructure
• Integrating agricultural and hydrology datasets
• Developing student training materials

• Community-facing data tools
• Expanded dataset integrations
• Workshops with Tribal partners
• Tribal Hackathon to introduce these tools

For questions or collaboration inquiries, please contact: Email: Foster Sawyer

This work is guided by the principles of Tribal data sovereignty, Tribal knowledge integration, and Community-led, land-based research as outlined below. We honor the Oglala Lakota Nation, the Oceti Sakowin and the lands that sustain this work.

This toolkit is aligned with the following complementary frameworks:

Citation of these frameworks is appropriate when using or extending this toolkit:

• Local Contexts: https://localcontexts.org/
• OCAP®: First Nations Information Governance Centre: https://fnigc.ca/ocap-training/
• CARE Principles: GIDA: https://www.gida-global.org/care
• FAIR Principles: https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/
• IEEE 2890-2025: https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/2890/10318/