Name: CorlySchmeisser
Grade: 7
Subject Areas: Social Studies, Science
Aretfact /Place/ Skill: Medicinal Plants, Indigenous Knowledge
Grade: 7
Subject Areas: Social Studies, Science
Aretfact /Place/ Skill: Medicinal Plants, Indigenous Knowledge
Making Space
How might teachers prepare their students to work with this content? What background knowledge might be required?
- Describe the importance of sharing in local communities (strengthening interpersonal relations and enabling the continuity of cultural practices).
- Provide examples of sharing in their own lives.
- Demonstrate that sharing includes not just material objects (like plants), but also ideas and knowledge.
- Explain how sharing of plants and knowledge contributes to health in local communities.
- Sharing of medicinal plants enhances community ties, increases access to culturally appropriate medicines, and promotes the continuation of cultural practice.
- The use of a medicine walk would greatly enhance students learning and allow them to feel the importance of knowledge.
Practice Humility
How might non-Indigenous teachers sensitively work with this subject? What might they need to consider in their own positionality?
- Non-Indigenous people will also benefit from the use of traditional knowledge, because such knowledge has much to offer modern society.
- It is being used increasingly to assist policymaking in many areas: food and agriculture, culture, human rights, resource management, sustainable development and the conservation of biological diversity, health, trade and economic development.
- Unauthorized copying of works by Indigenous people’s groups and communities.
- Appropriation of Indigenous themes and images.
- Culturally inappropriate use of Indigenous images and styles by non-Indigenous creators.
Acknowledge Sources
What can teachers do to find good supporting resources? How should they be cited, especially when it comes to Indigenous knowledges?
- Not everyone that uses medicinal plants knows how, or is physically able, to gather plants from a variety of different habitats.
- Knowledge about plants is distributed across and between communities.
- Some people only know how to use or harvest one or two plants, while other community members know about different plants. Their knowledge is complementary.
- These medicines are then shared within and across communities with medicine users. Taken together, the sharing of knowledge and plants contribute to cultural sovereignty.
- Contact elder’s local to the community to receive information regarding the topic.
- Possibly receive hand-outs from elder’s with information pertaining to local medicinal plants and histories.
- Indigenous knowledges should be cited directly from local elder to show respect and appreciation of their knowledge.
BC Curriculum Connections
How does it relate to BC Curriculum?
Big Idea(s):
- Religious and cultural practices that emerged during this period have endured and continue to influence people.
Curricular Competencies:
- Use Social Studies inquiry processes and skills to – ask questions; gather, interpret, and analyze ideas; and communicate findings and decisions.
- Assess the significance of people, places, events, or developments at particular times and places (significance).
- Explain different perspectives on past or present people, places, issues, or events, and compare the values, worldviews, and beliefs of human cultures and societies in different times and places (perspective).
Concepts & Content:
- Human responses to particular geographic challenges and opportunities, including climates, landforms, and natural resources.
- Origins, core beliefs, narratives, practices, and influences of religions, including at least one Indigenous to the Americas.
Big Idea(s):
- Evolution by natural selection provides an explanation for the diversity and survival of living things.
- Earth and its climate have changed over geological time.
Curricular Competencies:
- Make observations aimed at identifying their own questions about the natural world.
- Make predictions about the findings of their inquiry.
- Collaboratively plan a range of investigation types, including field work and experiments, to answer their questions or solve problems they have identified.
- Apply First Peoples perspectives and knowledge, other ways of knowing, and local knowledge as sources of information.
Concepts & Content:
- First Peoples knowledge of changes in biodiversity over time.
First People’s Principles of Learning
Which First People’s Principles of Learning apply?
- Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential and relational (focused on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place).
- Learning recognizes the role of indigenous knowledge.
Inviting Community
What is one waythat teachers could work with community members for this project?
- Situations in which youth learn to harvest medicinal plants, which they then share with Elders, creating intergenerational ties.
- Distributing harvested plants and prepared medicines to a variety of community members, who then share them with other people.
- Stressing the general importance of sharing in their lives (beyond plants) and for cultural activities.
- Contacting local elder’s and knowledge keepers.
- Contacting local cultural teachers within your school district.
Indigenous Perspectives
How does your lesson relate to decolonization or reconciliation of education?
- Allows students to feel a sense of connectedness with one another.
- Students are given the opportunity to hear local oral stories and knowledge regarding the chosen subject.
- With permission of Elder’s, students may be able to share the stories they heard and pass down the knowledge to others.
- Inclusion of Indigenous Knowledges in curriculum educates many children regarding the history and cultures of Indigenous peoples.
- Indigenous students have a better sense of connectedness, communication, and feel safe.