Patrick Freeland

Patrick Austin Freeland, Wind Clan of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, serves as an educator and communicator, committed to action to promote the advancement of community and educational institutions through the integration of plural knowledge systems, employing excellence in design, and leading innovation through adaptation. Through interdisciplinary sciences, arts, and engineering, Patrick’s vocation seeks to integrate living systems and contemporary knowledges as a means of addressing significant environmental challenges through cultural revitalization and community engagement. He currently serves as a Natural Resources Instructor at the College of the Muscogee Nation and leads the Mvskoke Cultural Gardens, which seeks to continue Indigenous Mvskoke traditional ecological knowledge, as well as to integrate modern agrotechnologies for synthetic-chemical-free food production, increasing biodiversity, and ecosystem restoration. Patrick is also the director for the Livelihood Knowledge Exchange Network (LiKEN) Knowledge Sharing Network: Centering Indigenous Knowledge Systems project, and leads the BuildingAFire.org website which offers freely available resources licensed under Creative Commons, to support Indigenous and non-Indigenous climate educators and students. Patrick continues to engage novel and creative endeavors which span the boundaries of healing and peace-making, community advancement through adaptive management, utilization of media and information technologies, and intercultural communication.