We recommend inviting an Indigenous community member into your learning space to share the teachings of the Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen.

Instructions:

• Ask students to consider what tools and technologies local Indigenous groups traditionally relied upon and continue to rely upon today for their livelihood and well-being. Focus areas to prompt discussion may include fire starting, cooking, hunting and trapping, shelter, transportation, ceremony, etc.
  • Ask students to brainstorm what these tools and technologies provide(d) for community.
  • Ask students to consider what natural materials were/are used to construct and/or facilitate the use of these tools and technologies. Time permitted this could be extended into an inquiry project.
• Ask students what in the natural world they are grateful for and how it enriches their lives. Ask students if they do anything to give back to the element of the natural world that provide them with gifts.
• Review the Haudenosaunee Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen (Review from Activity 1 in the Indigenous Knowledge Bundle). As a refresher teacher can play segment from Deepening Our Understanding | Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Being in the Natural World, a ten-minute video accompanying the Indigenous Knowledge Bundle with Kanyen’kehá:ka educator Liv Rondeau sharing the address and discussing its significance. Liv Rondeau is a Kanyen’kehá:ka (Akwesasne Mohawk Territory) educator who sits with the Wolf Clan.
• Send students to sit spots to journal in their Outdoor Nature Journals (introduced in the QUILLS Teacher’s Guide) about what they are grateful for.
• Option for students to share what they are grateful for in a Talking Circle. (Instructions regarding how to facilitate a Talking Circle in a good way are included in the Teacher’s Guide.)