Instructions: Contaminants in the Environment as a Threat to Biodiversity By reviewing study students learn that bitumen has a powerful impact on many species including wood frogs. This is especially problematic since wood frogs have many important functions in an ecosystem including, helping to control insect populations, acting as a food source, filtering water as […]
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We recommend inviting an Indigenous language speaker into the learning space when teaching about Indigenous languages. Instructions: Extension Activity: Place Names There are at least 30,000 place names in Canada whose names come from anglicized versions of Indigenous languages.
How Does Language Mirror and Shape Our Relationship to Land? Read More »
Instructions: Students are each given a card with a phrase on it (Found in Minds On Statements.pdf). Students circulate and share phrases with one another. While circulating students try to figure out what the unit is about. KWL Brainstorm KWL Chart: Teacher records all the class knows about water- students can copy chart into their Outdoor
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If possible, we recommend inviting an Indigenous community member into the learning environment to help teach about the important role of Water Walkers. Instructions: Ojibwe and Odawa Knowledge Keepers Liz Osawamick and Shirley Williams originally from Wiikwemkong Unceded First Nation on Manitoulin Island shared with QUILLS the important role Indigenous women play protecting water for future
Instructions: This activity shows the interconnectedness of water to everything else. This belief is held in common with a Western scientific perspective. This activity, therefore, point to the similarities that exist between the two ways of knowing.
Instructions: 2. Teachers display images and passages around the classroom or outside that depict both the Indigenous and Western scientific understanding of and relationship to water (Gallery Walk.pdf). Have students circulate and categorize the images and comments as belonging either to the Indigenous or Western scientific worldview. 3. Teachers debrief activity by revealing how the passages and
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An Indigenous community member must be invited into the learning space to deliver beadwork teachings. Instructions:
An Indigenous community member should be invited into your classroom to help provide the cultural teachings surrounding beadwork. Instructions: Extension:
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We recommend inviting a Knowledge Keeper or community member into the learning environment to help students understand the spirited epistemology of local Indigenous groups. Instructions: Image taken from commoxvalleyschools.ca Abiotic Elements: Water: Spotlight on Language: Note that students can go onto the online QUILLS dictionary to hear these word. The way the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe
A Spirited Epistemology Read More »
Instructions: Students reflect on the following questions in an exit ticket or other reflective writing piece. In Western culture things are made to be broken ie: to fuel capitalism.
Food Production – The Grinding Stone Read More »
Instructions: Seed Saving:
What is Seed Saving and Why is it Important? Read More »
We recommend inviting an Indigenous Knowledge Keeper or community member in to help communicate holistically what Indigenous Knowledge is to your students. Instructions: Teacher discusses with students how, like Western Scientists, Indigenous peoples also often examine bodies of water to understand the impacts of climate change on their communities. Indigenous ways of knowing are often
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An Indigenous Knowledge Keeper or community member should be invited in to help you deliver this learning activity. Instructions: Spotlight on Language: Students learn the names for The Three Sisters, Corn, Bean, and Squash in Kanyen’kéha and are encouraged to add them to their Outdoor Learning Journal use them these throughout the Bundle. Students can also go to
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Instructions: Activity: Optional Extension Activity:
Taking Responsibility to Reduce the Effects of Climate Change Read More »
Instructions: PPT content: Importance of Land Acknowledgements Chances are, you’ve seen or heard a land acknowledgement at some point in the past few years. But maybe you don’t totally understand why land acknowledgements are so important. They are not about placing blame. Land acknowledgments are about our collective connection to and relationship with the land.
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We recommend inviting an Indigenous community member into the classroom to tell the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Creation stories and talk about the significance of Indigenous languages. Instructions: Storytelling: Language and Language Revitalization Grammar: Indigenous languages are polysynthetic. Polysynthetic Indigenous languages, by being comprised of longer more complex words with each word containing many morphemes, reflect
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Instructions: Students support a local pollinator garden. Follow link below for a pollinator garden document developed by Kanyen’kehá:ka community member Kelly Maracle. Resource is also available in the Pollinator Garden pdf. Class One: Class Two:
Culminating Activity: Living in Reciprocity: Contributing to a Pollinator Garden Read More »
Instructions: 3. Students choose an Indigenous leader to learn more about. A preliminary list of names students can choose from includes: 4. Students are asked to pick one of these leaders and write a “snapshot of resistance”. 5. Students can choose the way they want to share their snapshot with the class. As an example, snapshots
Culminating Activity: Snapshot of Resistance: Showcasing Indigenous Leadership Read More »
A Knowledge Keeper or community member should be invited in to consult with students as they create their videos. Instructions: 1. Students review video series depicting Ra’nikonhrí:io Lazare and Katsenhaién:ton Lazare from Kahnawake Quebec providing teachings about Mullein, Staghorn Sumac, Plantain, and Milkweed. Videos were developed in partnership with the Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawénna Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural
Culminating Activity: Entering into Relationship with our Plant Relatives Read More »
A Knowledge Keeper or community member should be present. Instructions: Western Science Connection 5. Students familiarize themselves with the study: What are the benefits of plants indoors and why do we respond positively to them? by Virginia Lohr (2010). Summary found on this interactive online tool. If computer access isn’t available, content can be found in the Plants as Good Relatives.pdf.
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A Knowledge Keeper or community member could be present. Instructions: Students take part in an activity that demonstrates the concepts of the Honorable Harvest. The Honorable Harvest is a mindful way of harvesting and using gifts from the land. The actions of the Honorable Harvest stem from a collection of Indigenous principles and practices of living
Looking Inward: How Do We Impact the World Around Us? Read More »
Instructions: Part 1: Understanding “All Our Relations” Key Message: Story talks about how the Anishinaabe came to learn that all things are related and the importance of living in reciprocity with the land to ensure that all living things (including animal and plant species) thrive. Part 2: Reciprocal Relationships 3. The class then comes up
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Instructions: Climate Change as a Threat to Biodiversity Klaus, S. P., &Lougheed, S. C. (2013). Changes in breeding phenology of eastern Ontario frogs over four decades. Ecology and Evolution, 3(4), 835-845. Research shows a dramatic shift in spring emergence using song meter data. 2. Students listen to audio samples on the QUILLS website. Students can
Biodiversity and Climate Change: What do Frogs Have to Say About It? Read More »
Instructions: Invasive Species as a Threat to Biodiversity Participating in Citizen Science: 7. Students use the same methods as Colautti et al. to determine the presence/characteristics of garlic mustard on their school or on their property/neighborhood and write down observations. Instructions regarding how to track and input observations is included on the website compiled by Dr. Rob Colautti: garlicmustard.org. Instructions on how to run activity
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Instructions: Students should be able to: Western Science Connection Bird diversity can change based on the size of fragments of forests. For example, wood thrushes disappear quickly from small forest fragments while other species do well. 1. Teacher reviews the impact of forest fragmentation on wood thrush species using the PowerPoint titled Impact of Forest Fragmentation
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An Indigenous community member should be invited into the learning space to help students harvest cattails and weave cattail mats. Instructions: A gift of the earth that provides for the spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing of both the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe locally is cattails. Spotlight on Language: Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous
Weaving – The Gifts of Cattails Read More »
We recommend inviting an Indigenous community member into the learning space to help facilitate this learning activity. Instructions: Teachers explain that throughout the learning in the Bundle, the class should all try to see the best in one another, hear the best in the words of others, say kind things, and have an open heart.
Minds On: Smudging Read More »
Instructions: Worksheet will be made available in the Logo/Plant/Animal Flashcards that lists 16 corporate logos, 16 local plant species, and 16 local animal species.
Can you Recognize your Relatives? Why Does it Matter? Read More »
Instructions: Students will focus on learning about the plant they chose to develop a relationship with, in Activity One: Language Scavenger Hunt. Teachers can choose to do one or more of the following activities with their students: a. Students think creatively to record Western scientific knowledge of the plant (name, habitat, description; etc.), the history of the
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