Early Learning on the Land
About This Session
Friday, November 17
4:10 PM - 5:00 PM
Room: Prairie C
Description
Early childhood is a significant time of children’s place and environmental identity development. How children come to see themselves and their relationship with others and their environments are shaped by familial, social-cultural, and geographical contexts. In this presentation, I will share findings from extensive research with young children from non-rural and rural Alaska Native communities. I will present methods for seeing the world through the eyes of a child, including Sensory Tours (equipping children with wearable cameras) and using children’s drawings and descriptions to learn about their early learning on the Land. We will discuss culturally-sustaining approaches in education that honor Indigenous ways of relating and being and empower our children to share what’s important to them. Participants will be invited to share and reflect on how early learning in SD Tribal Communities can better support Oceti Sakowin values and children’s health, well-being and resiliency on the Land.
Session Presenter(s)
Carie Green
Early Childhood Education Director, SDSU
Early Childhood Education Director, SDSU
Dr. Carie Green is Profilet and DeJong Family Endowed Director of Early Childhood Education at South Dakota State University. Prior to coming to SDSU, she taught graduate education courses in the School of Education at the University of Alaska Fairbanks where she spent seven years working with teachers in rural Alaska Native villages and advancing understanding of children's perspectives of place and their environment. In her current research she is partnering with the popular PBS Kids Cartoon, Molly of Denali, to study the cultural attributes of children's relationships with the Land and the co-development of educational resources in rural Alaska Native communities.