One of the education initiatives of our research project is teaching Indigenous cultural values in relation to the environment and place. See examples of these education initiatives in research contexts here.

Education Indigenous to place recognizes that traditional ways of knowing are taught through stories and by way of demonstration (Barnhardt & Kawagley, 1999). Through lessons that emphasize traditional ecological understandings, children will develop a deeper connection to their environment and place.

Below, we provide an example of a mini-educational unit designed to encourage ecological, cultural, and historical place attachment in elementary age children. This project is contextualized to Southern Appalachia and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, but the activities developed for this unit are applicable to other places, with necessary adjustments to capture the history and resources of your place.

While these lessons are valuable techniques for exploring and connecting with the historic and cultural elements of place, the creator John R. Henry acknowledges that he is non-Native, and these lessons would benefit with greater input from Cherokee Elders and teachers.

Download a PDF of these materials here.

EID Connections: The four lessons of this unit provide opportunities for children to develop Spatial Autonomy and Environmental Competency. The lessons greatly encourage both personal and cultural connections to nature.

Rootedness in the Unta’kiyasti’ yi Watershed: Encouraging Ecological, Cultural, and Historical Place Attachment in Southern Appalachia

This mini-educational unit was created by John R. Henry, a former graduate student of the M. Ed. People, Place, and Pedagogy program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The following has been simplified and adapted from its original form as a graduate project and course paper.

The main objectives of these lessons are to give an introductory experience to children in connection to nature and to inspire wonder at the rich cultural history embedded in place. This mini educational unit for elementary school ages aims to explore holistic notions of Land education and encourage connection to place in the areas in and surrounding Asheville, North Carolina. The Land Education model represents a holistic view that draws upon critical pedagogy of place, centering Indigenous understandings of land and affirming the need for place-based educators to “think about what non-colonial relations might look like both in theory and practice” (Calderon, 2014, p. 28). Therefore, this project is framed and influenced by a recognition of the Cherokee people as the original inhabitants and knowers of the land.

Context: These lessons were designed in Asheville, NC. The French Broad River that winds through present-day Asheville, North Carolina is known as Unta’kiyasti’, literally, “where they race,” which refers to the rushing waters of the river’s rapids (Native Languages of the Americas, 2015). Asheville lies near Cherokee, NC, or the Qualla Boundary, the tribal lands of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. These lessons were designed to be applicable in a school context. John R. Henry performed a trial implementation with his own children, a first grader and a third grader.

Briefly, the four lessons are:

Lesson 1: Cultural Mapping and Bioregions of the Unta’kiyasti’ yi Watershed

- Children draw maps of the local watershed and learn Cherokee names/meanings

Lesson 2: Exploring Unta’kiyasti’

- Children take a fieldtrip to explore the local river

Lesson 3: Cultural and Historical Rootedness in Place in ᏣᎳᎩ [Cherokee]

- Children take a fieldtrip to the local Museum of the Cherokee Indian

Lesson 4: Report and Presentation

- Children create a report reflecting on their experiences and new understandings of place

This lesson utilizes the concept of cultural atlases, which are developed through the study of original Indigenous place names and include documenting the knowledge of traditional uses and memories of those places (Topkok, 2014). This lesson also draws upon the concept of drawing one’s bioregion, developed by Berg (2005). Merging these concepts, children will work with their teacher to draw maps of their local watershed, incorporating Cherokee names and meanings.

Materials needed:

- Paper, colored pencils or crayons

- A (pre-existing) geographic map of the area

- Glossary of local Indigenous place names. This project utilized a compilation by Chestnut (1991).

Activity:

With the help of the teacher, children will map the area around their home and city, paying special attention to the streams near their homes and how they connect to the main river that dissects the city. Depending on age and skill of children, the teacher may provide a dotted line for the river that children can trace. Other landforms, such as mountains and valleys, may be drawn on the map.

Major cultural place names in the Cherokee language will then be marked on the map. Teachers may also mark the approximate points that were ancient Cherokee settlements or sacred places on the map. Children can copy these place names themselves. If the proper pronunciation is known (or a recording is available online), children may practice saying these names.

To close the lesson, children will listen to a traditional story about the mountains around this area called Yonder Mountain as told by Robert Bushyhead (Bushyhead, 2002; Duncan, 1998). Provide reflection time after this story. Encourage children to think about the themes and messages in the story. Connect the setting and happenings in the story with the places on the children’s map, and remind them these places are all around them.

Studying local streams and rivers and how they relate to the greater watershed is integral to developing an ecological understanding of place. Sobel (1996) suggests the chronologically expanding study of local watersheds, called stream grooming and stream following. For this lesson, children will identify the closest stream to their home and trace it on their map to the Unta’kiyasti’ river. They will then be taken on a field trip to the French Broad River Park, a nature trail that follows the river for several miles.

Materials needed:

- Pencil and drawing pad for each child

Activity:

After tracing their nearest stream to the Unta’kiyasti’ river on their map, children will visit the river at the French Broad River Park. If possible, try to find and follow the nearest stream to the Unta’kiyasti’ river. Once at the park, children will be allowed to individually and collectively explore the greenbelt around the river, touching treasures of rocks, leaves, and earthworms along the way. With their drawing pad, children will be encouraged to draw or sketch any combination of five plants, animals, or natural objects that make them feel happy about this river. Teachers may set limits (according to age and competency levels) how far students may wander from supervising adults.

The lesson will conclude with lunch and time of reflection in the park, followed by a storytelling of “How the Possum Lost His Tail” (Arch, 1998).

Materials needed:

- Children should bring their maps and their notebooks used for observational drawings at the river

- A camera or camera-phone to take pictures or record language pronunciations

Activity:

In preparation for this second field-based lesson, children will bring along their cultural maps, as well as their observational drawings and a notebook. They will travel to the Museum of the Cherokee Indian within the Qualla Boundary, the tribal lands of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. In groups of two, the students will participate in the self-guided tour of the exhibits. They will take notes of ten things that appear most interesting to them about the different exhibits.

At some point along the tour, they will seek out one of the several Cherokee language experts for help in pronunciation of place names on their map. They will also inquire of the language experts if they happen to know the name for the subjects they sketched in their observational drawings. Students will ask their teachers for assistance in using the teacher’s smartphone to record, with the permission of the language expert, the correct pronunciation of these names.

If you do not have such a resource available, consider:

- Do any local Native groups host powwows, ceremonies, conventions, or festivals that are open to the general public?

- Are there local Native persons who practice as teachers or storytellers outside of their tribe and community?

- Are there local history museums or parks that incorporate local Indigenous culture and history? (This may need to be supplemented with more modern resources created by Indigenous peoples.)

- Are there any local archaeological sites of former Native settlements (Once again, try to find Indigenous-created resources about this place, if possible.)

- Are there interactive online resources about (the specific) Indigenous culture, language, and place?

Shortly after the first three lessons, children shall be allotted special time to devote to a creative written and/or multimedia report of their findings. This report will be primarily a reflection of their affective responses to the map making, river walk, museum, and new understandings of the historical and cultural aspects of their place. Their report should include the maps, drawings, audio recordings, and any student-captured images. Pictures inside the Cherokee museum should only be taken or included with the explicit permission of museum administration.

This project provides an important opportunity for self-reflection and allowing children to make connections between themselves and their education experiences (Simms & Shanahan, 2019).