Indigenous Land: Stewardship, Relationships, and Responsibility

Missouri River, July 2016. Photograph by NMAI staff.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and Teaching for Change host a day of online conversation, curriculum sharing, and ideas exchange.  

NMAI education experts, Teaching for Change, and K–12 teachers will share curriculum and teaching strategies and explore the NMAI’s Essential Understandings for teaching about Indigenous peoples’ histories and their experiences around land justice today. The keynote speaker will discuss land rights issues and the relationship between Indigenous knowledge and the land. Workshops will feature classroom resources from the NMAI’s online education portal Native Knowledge 360° and the Zinn Education Project’s Teach Climate Justice Campaign. The teach-in will be held online via Zoom.

The rivers, trees, and other plants have existed and been governed by natural laws for millennia. What if they had legal, sovereign rights, too? How can we honor the land? What relationships with the land can we mend through Indigenous thinking and practices? Discuss, be inspired, and connect with your curriculum!