Quills Subject Area: Language Arts

Students learn about Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee ceremonies and land-based practices that enter community members into reciprocal relationships with the natural world. Students reflect on their own cultural traditions that encourage reciprocity with the natural world.

Teacher is introduced to the importance of storytelling to Indigenous ways of knowing and being and the value of integrating Indigenous Knowledge into STEM teaching and learning.

Students explore how language affects and mirrors our relationship to land, by learning Anishinaabemowin and Kanyen’kéha words. Students also learn the Indigenous origin of many local place names.

After communicating with local Indigenous and non-Indigenous leadership, students propose a plan for how to deal with a local climate change issue. Students are provided with different options for how they will demonstrate their understanding.

Students learn about Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee ceremonies and land-based practices that enter community members into reciprocal relationships with the natural world. Students reflect on their own cultural traditions that encourage reciprocity with the natural world.

Students reflect on the impact of the changing climate on a place that is special to them.

Students pick an invasive species to research and report on. Research must touch on the impact the species has on Indigenous land-based practices and how management practices are informed by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of knowing.

Students learn the The Ohen:ton Kariwatehkwen (The Words that Come Before all Else or the Thanksgiving Address) and reflect on how it positions humans in a rich, interdependent web of relationships with elements in the natural that must be related to with reciprocity. As an extension students journal in an outdoor sit spot about what they are grateful for in nature.

A culminating activity for students to research a current Canadian environmental issue and design a social justice campaign for their school.

Students listen to Anishinaabe water songs and the meaning behind them. Students reflect on how songs (music) possess power and can create powerful social change.

Students learn about Indigenous ceremonies that are related to water. Students research another culture’s ceremonies related to water and share them with the class.

Students research the original Indigenous names for local waterways and create a map with those names.

Learn about the four parts of the medicine wheel, collect items from nature and create a story that connects items.

Students review the Ohèn:ton Karihwatéhkwen (The Words That Come Before All Else) and consider the centrality of water to Haudenosaunee and other local Indigenous groups.

Students learn about interdependence by discovering the role that each element in a 3 Sisters Garden plays in the garden’s health and vibrancy. Students also reflect on their own responsibility to care for the land.

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.

By reading a story and spending time outside students learn about the gifts of the forest and the interdependence of all things in nature including humans. As an extension, students learn some of the proper protocols for food collection in forested areas.

Students take steps to form a more meaningful relationship with plants.

Students learn Anishinaabemowin, and Kanyen’kéha words by going on a scavenger hunt for local plants.