The buffalo have moved! Much like the early Dakota, my students had to create a travois and a baby carrier in order to follow the buffalo. The reward at the end was tasting buffalo meat. Later in the year we also did tasting of maple syrup, wild rice, hard tack, and grasshoppers.

Students were given a special presentation of fur trade roles and artifacts. This included students taking on the roles of various types of fur traders and lifting a 90 pound pack. They later participated in a fur trading simulation in which they traded in order to make a profit.

Tensions can rise when labor and management disagree in real life. That was also the case when students took on the roles of a labor union and industrialists. They used their knowledge gained from our curriculum to negotiate over important topics like workplace safety and child labor.