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ojibwemowin environmental education curriculum
by Deanne Himango
BACKGROUND
Native Americans can be regarded as the first environmentalists.
They understood nature as a community to which humans along with
every other living thing belonged, long before the creation of
ecology. Native Americans did modify their environment through
forest and grassland burning, and also practiced hunting, gathering
and fishing, however, they respected the limits of their environment
and the need to restrain human impact. George Marsh was one of
the first Americans to understand that the condition of the land
was as much a product of humans as of nature and stated," Man's
power to transform the natural world should entail a commensurate
sense of responsibility", and warned if one did not, that it was
one of the greatest threats to the welfare, indeed the survival
of civilization.
Minnesota Indian Reservations have gone through tremendous changes
of polices, laws, and governments, yet still manage to retain
some of the traditional values and customs of their ancient ancestry
and have focused their governments upon these traditions. The
traditional Native American teaching is employed through stories
that entail applied life lessons. These lessons are carried throughout
life to be used as guidelines for walking the 'good road'. There
is a need for this type of traditional teaching to resurface within
academia for the Native American culture.
The problem addressed in this study is that there are few Ojibwe
language and traditional learning-based environmental curriculum
resources for Native American students. The resources that currently
exist are not Ojibwe-specific, not Ojibwe language-specific nor
are they authored by people of Ojibwe ancestry. Review of other
curriculum guides include several environmental education guides
developed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, selected authors of books
and curriculum and several others. Placing environmental education
in a cultural context will help lay the foundation in science
for Native American students and will create an enthusiasm and
motivation to learn.
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