Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL) is the lead agency in a network of institutions of higher education working together to establish and maintain the Ethnomathematics Digital Library (EDL). Collaborative partners, including the Australian Academy of Science, the University of the South Pacific, the University of Guam, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Ohio State University's Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Mathematics and Science Education, comprise the Pacific Ethnomathematics Collections Network (PECN).
EDL is an interactive learning environment and resource network for ethnomathematics of the Pacific region. The project involves identifying, collecting, cataloging, and organizing high quality ethnomathematics curriculum and instructional materials, research articles, and other professional resources of interest to elementary, secondary and tertiary students and teachers, curriculum developers, researchers, and members of institutions of higher education. The library provides users with a premier and readily accessible source of documents and materials describing the mathematics created and used by indigenous cultures around the world. The source for much of this material is contained in the PECN libraries and partner organizations, thereby providing reliable regional, national, and international accessibility to information on the Pacific island communities' particular mathematical ways of knowing.
The creation of a central, reliable, and easily accessible repository of high quality ethnomathematics information has the potential to further the advancement of current understandings of the mathematical constructs of indigenous communities. It also has the potential to foster the creation and distribution of classroom instructional materials that acknowledge and honor these constructs. EDL encourages teachers to search the database for relevant ethnomathematics information, create customized classroom materials based on this information, and submit these materials for review and possible archiving. The digitized ethnomathematics library promotes interactivity between resource users and resource providers and the integration of research and education.
