Living Earth 2020 Teach-In: Sustaining Our Future
EVENT CANCELED
With regrets, this event is canceled in the interest of public health and well-being. We will reschedule the event in the new school year in coordination with the host institution.
March 21, 2020 from 9am-1pm
National Museum of the American Indian, Washington D.C.
K-12 teachers are invited to learn about Indigenous knowledge, sustainability practices, and the importance of water. Attend poster or workshop sessions and explore classroom resources from Native Knowledge 360° and the Zinn Education Project’s Teach Climate Justice campaign.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Winona LaDuke. LaDuke is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development renewable energy and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is a two time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party. As Program Director of the Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on the issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with Indigenous communities.
WORKSHOP SESSION ONE
The Inka Empire: What Innovations Can Provide Food and Water for Millions? The Inka Empire thrived in South America in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Join astronomer and educator Dr. Isabel Hawkins (bilingual/bicultural, from Argentina) of the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco to delve into The Inka Empire: What Innovations Can Provide Food and Water for Millions? This new Native Knowledge 360° online lesson highlights Inka-period engineering accomplishments that allowed the Inka to manage their vast and disperse empire. Discover how their legacy has relevancy in the present day. Explore a variety of sources that reveal how the need to feed and provide water for millions of people across an expansive territory led to Inka innovations in water management and agriculture. Many of these innovations are still in use today by Indigenous communities in the Andes. Participants will also receive the Q’eswachaka Bridge Educational Poster and Lesson and the Chaski Teacher’s Guide. Whether you teach environmental science, STEM, geography, history, or economics, we encourage you to learn about this free classroom resource! Recommended for fifth- through eighth-grade teachers.
Environmental History Timeline. Explore 200 years of the environmental movement in this interactive resource designed by Earth Day Network. We will focus on water issues throughout history for the United States and other countries around the world. We will also spotlight Indigenous women and their role in the global environmental movement. Come share your ideas of notable historical moments and explore how you and your students can be part of the future of the environmental movement!
Teaching About Climate and Environmental Justice in Children’s Literature. This workshop for elementary school teachers will provide an opportunity for participants to (1) discuss criteria for children’s books about the environment and climate change; (2) work in small groups to apply the criteria to a wide selection of children’s books during the session, and (3) engage in a reading and discussion of “A Pedagogy for Ecology” by Ann Pelo from Rethinking Early Childhood Education. A key topic of discussion will be the need for children’s books that move beyond a focus on individual responses to climate change and instead focus on systemic causes and organized resistance. Facilitated by early childhood teachers from the Teaching for Change D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice.
American Indian Responses to Environmental Challenges. Learn how to use NMAI’s educational website, American Indian Responses to Environmental Challenges. Explore digital resources that reveal how the Leech Lake Ojibwe of Minnesota protect wild rice. Find out how traditional culture, values, and indigenous knowledge, along with Western science and technology, inform the environmental work of contemporary Native nations. Recommended for sixth-through ninth-grade teachers.
WORKSHOP SESSION TWO
Great Companions! A Three-Sisters Mural for Your Classroom. In this hands-on, arts-and-science integrated session, deepen your knowledge of companion planting through Native stories and artmaking. Create a three-dimensional mural illustrating the Three Sisters Garden using simple materials widely available. Recommended for Pre-K to fifth-grade teachers. All participants will receive the Zuni Teaching Poster and lesson plan for their classrooms. Join arts educator Karen O. Brown in this lively session.
Environmental Teach-In and Earth Day 2020. Participate in this Teach-In Teach-In! Learn the history of the environmental Teach-In that took place fifty years ago at the first Earth Day in 1970. Explore ways to incorporate the Teach-In model with your students and give it a modern upgrade for the twenty-first century. We will run through a Teach-In simulation exercise focusing on water issues. We will also review all of the Earth Day 2020 resources available for educators and how you, your students, your schools, and your communities can join the environmental movement for the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day.
Meet Today’s Climate Justice Activists: A mixer on the people saving the world. This workshop with engage middle and high school teachers in a mixer lesson that can be used to introduce students to the stories of climate justice activists who are organizing toward climate action. The authors of the lesson, high school teachers Matt Reed and Tim Swinehart, chose roles that bring together various strands of the climate justice movement, and that highlight the broad coalition of groups are working toward the goal of a just transition — including people who students might not recognize as climate activists. Included are a number of indigenous activists, including teach-in keynote speaker Winona LaDuke. This lesson, available for free access at the Zinn Education Project website, creates an opportunity for our students begin to see themselves as part of this movement — as activists — capable of creating the change that so often feels out of reach. Facilitated by two representatives from the Zinn Education Project.
Bridging Differences: Inka and American Values. This interactive, dialogue-based session will inspire thoughtful conversation about personal values and collective responsibility. How could understanding someone else's values affect things like conflict, interpersonal relationships, and policy? Which one of your personal values do you think our society could use more of? As we explore these questions throughout this session, participants will learn more about the Inka value of ayni, or communal responsibility, and its role in traditional building practices. Led by Ami Temarantz, lead cultural interpreter.