Quills Subject Area: History

Giving Thanks to the Water

Students practice reciprocity by releasing their good intentions and thoughts into a local water source.

Water Walkers

Students learn about Water Walkers and the important work they do protecting local water sources.

Two-Row Wampum

Students learn about the two-row wampum and how it can be used as a metaphor for using Indigenous land-based knowledge and Western science together. Students design wampum inspired beadwork to consolidate their learning.

The Honorable Harvest

Students reflect on the plants and animals around them that provide for their holistic well-being and learn about the Honorable Harvest and how it relates to the gifting of tobacco.

Indigenous Resurgence

Students learn about the ability of Indigenous resurgence to revitalize Indigenous lifeways and engender empowerment within community. Students engage in a beading project as an example of Indigenous resurgence.

Food Production – The Grinding Stone

Students learn about the grinding stone used by the Haudenosaunee to prepare food and reflect on the importance of caring for the tools we rely on as well as the natural materials they are sourced from.

What is Seed Saving and Why is it Important?

Through discussion students learn about how seed saving, as a form of Indigenous resurgence, helps local community members both foster food sovereignty and adapt to climate change.

Indigenous Land-Based Knowledge

Through discussion and plant identification activity, students learn about Indigenous Land-Based Knowledge. Students also examine a case study community members monitor, understand, and raise awareness about how climate change is impacting the whitefish population.

Taking Responsibility to Reduce the Effects of Climate Change

Students learn to distinguish between the natural vs. human-caused greenhouse effect and discuss how colonization disrupted relationships characterized by reciprocity with the natural world and in so doing has contributed to the greenhouse effect.

Land Acknowledgement Workshop

Students learn how to construct a meaningful, personalized, land acknowledgement in which they articulate the ways in which they are actively working towards reconciliation and striving to live in reciprocity with the land in a manner that will protect it for the next 7 generations.

Land-Based Meditation

Students engage in a land-based meditation reflecting on how they can live in reciprocity with the land. Following this, teacher leads a discussion with students regarding the nature of the Original Instructions that are transmitted through the land to Indigenous peoples.

Creation Stories and Language

Students listen to the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee creation stories and reflect on how these stories have shaped Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee culture. Students learn about how Indigenous ways of knowing and being are contained in Indigenous languages and the impact of colonization on language loss.

Colonization and Our Changing Landscape

Students will explore how different landscapes change within 20-30 years from urbanization. Students can then extend this thinking to a timeline before colonization, and how the present landscape will look 100 years from now.