Instructions:
- Students choose a place at their school grounds, a local park, or at ELEEC to sit in for approximately ten minutes. (Some learners may prefer to walk through their space and can be encouraged to do so.) While sitting in or walking through their space, students consider the following question:
- What does the land provide to us and how can we give back to the land?
- Sitting in or walking through your spot, use your five senses to notice what the land has to teach you about this question. For instance, what do you hear? See? Smell? Feel? and taste? You may wish to record what you notice in a notebook or on a piece of paper.
- Be prepared to share your observations with the group afterward.
- Before students are sent off, they should be encouraged to quiet their minds and notice the little things. Students should remain open to what their five senses have to tell them.
- Afterward, students can be encouraged to share the answers revealed to them by the land.
Extension: Original Instructions
- The teacher leads a discussion with students regarding the nature of the Original Instructions that are transmitted through the land to Indigenous peoples. The land teaches us that all humans have a holistic and interconnected relationship with the land that must be maintained by living with reciprocity and respect.
- Teachers get talking points to lead the discussion from the worksheet for teachers found in Nature of the Original Instructions.pdf.
