Quills Theme: Indigenous Knowledge Systems

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.

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.

Ohèn:ton Karihwatéhkwen (The Words that Come Before All Else)

Students learn the Ohèn:ton Karihwatéhkwen and reflect on how it positions humans in a rich, interdependent web of relationships with elements in the natural world. As an extension students journal in an outdoor sit spot about what they are grateful for in nature.

Culminating Activity: Living in Reciprocity: Contributing to a Pollinator Garden

Students explore pollinator gardens and how they can give back to them.

Culminating Activity: Snapshot of Resistance: Showcasing Indigenous Leadership 

Students will explore and share the importance of Indigenous leadership in protecting biodiversity.

Culminating Activity: Entering into Relationship with our Plant Relatives

Taking inspiration from Ra’nikonhrí:io Lazare and Katsenhaién:ton Lazare, students will create their own videos that capture our relationships with a specific plant. Duration: Over multiple work periods

Plants as Good Relatives

Students will explore the Haudenosaunee Ohèn:ton Karihwatéhkwen (The Words That Come Before All Else). Students then participate in an experiment focused on whether indoor plants have an impact on humans.

Looking Inward: How Do We Impact the World Around Us?

Students explore the principles of the Honorable Harvest through an in-class activity.

Living in Reciprocity with All Our Relations

Students explore the meaning of All Our Relations and interdependence by creating a community web that demonstrates these important concepts. Students will also explore how many of the things they depend on in their everyday lives come from the natural world.

Smudging

Students are introduced to the Anishinaabe practice of smudging and reflect on how its teaching to see and hear the best in others and speak about others with kind words can inform how students engage in the learning in this Bundle.

Exploring Different Ways of Classifying

Students will explore classification processes from different knowledge systems using fallen leaves.

Language Scavenger Hunt

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