This project addresses barriers faced by indigenous students in the Brazilian Amazon, where chemistry is taught exclusively in Portuguese and remains disconnected from local language and culture. Working in partnership with GEDAI Amazônia and the Tembé community, the project will co-create a bilingual Tenetehara periodic table, complemented by recorded pronunciations and cultural notes inspired by Tembé sky-creation stories. The resource will be produced in Tenetehara, Portuguese and English to support both local schools and wider dissemination. Across a twelve-month programme, the team will conduct consultation and co-design with community leaders, translate and validate element names, record spoken Tenetehara, and integrate these materials into a digital platform that combines text, audio and cultural narratives. The table will be piloted in schools in Pará, with feedback from teachers and students guiding final refinement. The University of Kent will coordinate the project, GEDAI will lead community engagement and linguistic validation, and Europlanet will support international dissemination. Beyond the Tenetehara case study, the project aims to establish an open multimedia database of chemical elements in indigenous languages, supporting cultural preservation and inclusive science education. Colleagues working with Zapotec, Santali and Yoruba communities have already expressed interest, positioning this pilot as the foundation of a scalable global initiative to make chemistry more inclusive, accessible and culturally meaningful.

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Photograph: Rodrigo Abd/AP