Idea

Aerial ” I spy’ Aleutian, AK Pen., Kodiak

A little something like this?

A lesson in Aerial Surveys in the Aleutians, AK Pen. And Kodiak Island(aka how the earth surface changes).

The state I built by plate tectonics and subsequent volcanism while glacial action is a primary driver in its being torn down. Both leave their evidence on the landscape. One way to learn about what happened here is…

The use of aerial photography and later satellite imagery has long been used by government agencies. The military is interested in strategic locations, intelligence gathering, etc. Meanwhile Geoscientists, biologists, geophysicists, cartographers, anthropologists, and archeologists all have questions that can be answered through various types of surveys before having to allocate resources to touch the ground in a region.

Given this region of the world is home to an 1100 mi. long arch of volcanoes, experiences earthquakes, and tsunamis on a globally unprecedented basis and the area has been, in some cases scraped clean of any usable soil by the last glaciation it would seem impossible odds for anything to make a living here. It may surprise you that not only are there numerous species of marine mammals, birds, salmon,etc, ect. There is a long and sorted history of human inhabitants. The Aleut have subsisted on what resources they could secure from land and sea for thousands of years in the face of these volcanoes, tsunamis, glaciers and earthquakes.

We can look at several sets of images that show different features of volcanoes (calderas, active vents, pyroclastic flows, etc.) We can use older, grainy images to new satellite, or google earth images. Which is a better tool for the job? What questions could we answer with x technology

Additionally, we can look at images with evidence of glaciated terrain and previously glaciated

terrain vs non-glaciated.

We could do a little practice together pic A, Pic B, Pic C

What do you see? Blah, blah or blah? Ok how about blah blah? Yes and what don’t you see?

The exercise would have students look at three regions within the wester maritime region

One that was clearly Volcanic

One Volcanic and previous glaciated

One w/o Volcanoes but with glaciated

Bonus(tricky)- no volcanoes or glacial

Can you tell from imagery alone what may have happened in an area?

What is your evidence for your conclusion?

How could we ‘see’ it?

Have a blank map for students to populate with the features they think they can identify and what has ‘happened’ there.

A debrief after the exercise was completed could ask some questions related to how else might we access these areas without having to go there and at a reasonable expense?

Fishing for……. Drones and high resolution mapping. Inexpensive (relatively) and accuracy achievable to +/- 10cm pretty easily.

This could lead into another exercise: How to make a map using a drone…. Then do it?
Some helpful links could be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD5BWgJVR3w

Appreciate the importance of language in culture. How does language keep culture alive?

Region: Arctic Class time: 2 class periods

>Language is the essence of culture. People’s ways of living, their histories, and their philosophies are all understood and communicated through language. Although most American Indian people today speak English, they still consider their traditional languages to be extremely important for cultural identity

Photo for puzzle: Eskimo hunter or photo representation of Inupiat culture

Activity: Have one puzzle, divide it up into fourths. Divide students into four groups. No talking. Put the puzzle together within group.

After the activity engage students by asking what it felt like to put the pieces together without being able to talk to one another. If students were able to talk to each other, would it have been easier to figure out which pieces they were missing, who had the missing pieces, and how to work together to put the puzzle (culture) back together? How can we build community if we are forbidden to speak to each other in a relatable fashion?

Introduce lesson about Native American boarding schools. Then discuss as a class. Explain how the puzzle was a metaphor for culture. Thus, by separating the pieces and students and forbidding the ability to speak native language, the boarding schools were trying to assimilate Native Americans into American culture.

Sample questions:

How is your school alike or different from the American Indian boarding schools?
What do you think life was like for American Indian children at the early boarding schools?
How would it feel to be separated from your family for four or more years without seeing them?
Why do you think the government and boarding schools wanted to eliminate American Indian languages and cultures?
Why do you think they ultimately failed in that effort?

Lesson: When language is taken away it is harder to relate to others and to oneself in a familiar, heartfelt way.

Language is central to cultural identity. It is the code containing the subtleties and secrets of cultural life. In many ways, language determines thought. —W. Richard West, Jr., Southern Cheyenne

Assignment: Write an editorial article and make poster incorporating editorial content. If students feel comfortable, interview an elder in the community. If not, provide resources of documented accounts from those who attended boarding schools.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/4/14/1200994/-Native-schools-and-stolen-generations-U-S-and-Canada

http://iser.uaa.alaska.edu/Publications/boardingschoolfinal.pdf

Western Maritime Region – Lesson Plan (Language Arts)

I have two different ideas for my lesson plan. I will discuss them with my group members on Monday and make a decision on which one to pursue. These ideas are:

(1) Tsunami Stories: Compare the Unangan and/or Sugapik myths and stories concerning tsunamis to the tsunami myths/stories of the Moken (Sea-Gypsy) people of Southeast Asia. (In 2004, the Moken people in Thailand were perhaps the only people to realize that a tsunami was coming, which caused nearly all of them to successfully evacuate to higher ground or out to sea.) I might also include one other regions/peoples origin story concerning tsunamis (I’m thinking perhaps Japan, where the word tsunami comes from).

Split the class into groups corresponding to a specific region/people. Then have each group read “their” tsunami myth/origin story plus a brief account of an actual tsunami from that region. Ask each group to infer and discuss the relationship (if any) between “their” origin story and what it might say about the people/culture/place. Approx 25-30 minutes
Have the groups present the origin story plus a very brief account of a historical tsunami in that region to the other groups. Approx 15-20 minutes.
After group presentations ask each group to quickly talk about and then present similarities/differences on how the myths/stories compare between the different peoples/cultures/places. Approx 10 minutes.

(2) Elements of the Aleutians: Water, Wind and Fire – Split the class into three groups and have each group read/discuss a Unangan or Sugapik myth/origin story on either Water (possibly a Tsunami story), or Wind (the Aleutians have been called the Birthplace of the Winds), or Fire (a Volcano myth/origin story). 20 minutes.

Have each group present their myth/origin story on one of the three elements to the other two groups. 10 minutes.
Have each student (group maybe?) develop their own origin myth based upon three natural features/forces of nature that surround, affect or shape their own community. 30 minutes.

Impact of Climate Change on Inupiaq Whaling

My intended audience is an Anchorage 10^th grade biology class.

I am factoring this lesson will take up three 45min class periods.

The essential question for this lesson is how much of an impact does climate change have on whaling for the Inupiaq people of the north coast of Alaska?

So far I have two sources for this lesson: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40863619.pdf?_=1466303286137

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378005000786

I plan to acquire more.

Perhaps embedded in a unit on Cetaceans I’d do this lesson. For the first class I’d like to go over the background knowledge needed for this exercise. First looking at Bowhead habitat and niches. Secondly, I like to look at what a hunt consists of. Thirdly, I’d like to go over the impacts of climate change in the area.

Generally speaking the fist class period will go over the Bowhead whale and whaling of the Inupiaq people. The Second class will look at climate change over the Inupiaq area and what they have done to adapt. For the final class I was thinking of splitting the class up into pairs and have them come up with a budget analysis of hunting Bowheads now in comparison to 40 years ago.

Some questions I’d like students to investigate: Does it cost more to hunt Bowheads today? Is it worth it? What now are the associated risks? If you had to depend on that as a resource for your livelihood what new strategies for hunting whales can you come up with?

Of course, I welcome any suggestions.

Idea- Arctic Circle and Earth’s Inclination.

The intended audience for this lesson would be between 7th and 10th grade. The lesson is about the arctic for a science class.
The lesson would probably take 1-3 class periods.
The essential question revolves around what causes seasons and the variation in day light.
Start the lesson with learning what the student’s background knowledge is on the subject of seasons and earth’s axial tilt. Ask questions like, What causes seasons, and why are days longer in summer than in winter. Then move onto earth’s axial tilt and how the earth moves around the sun. After that ask the student’s how far the earth would have to tilt to have a full day of sun light during winter. Have the student’s give their best guesses then divide them into groups and have them design an experiment to discover what the answer is. After that ask the students what affect this would have on the way people live in their town (hotter summers, colder winters, Large variations between day and night, ect.) Talk about the ways Northern Alaskans have adapted to these extremes. Then allow the students time to work on their projects.

lesson plan- Ms. Halvorson

I plan to do a lesson plan on Glaciers for the Southeast region. The idea is to ask the students what they already know about glaciers because for the majority of them, it’s in their backyard. Then, depending on the information they already know, teach them some new elements about glaciers. Including why the glaciers are blue is fun (in my opinion) so how is glacier ice different than the ice in your freezer? I can use the iBook to help show what calving is (video). I can also have before and after pictures of glaciers over time. I would like to add something on how erratics occur and what that tells people/scientist. I would like to have an eye-opening idea on how fast glaciers are really shaping the land too. I can add graphs that digress on what the actual receding rate of the local glaciers are and ponder on what that might mean for Alaska/Alaskans and the earth. And I would like to find some storytelling from the Natives to see what importance this has/had on them. As far as an activity, I was thinking something with the receding rate or maybe showing them, in pictures, what glaciated land looks like and then put up some for them to decide if the land was glaciated or not.

Objective: Have students grasp how important glaciers are to the land, culture, and the people surrounding the glacier.

Intended audience is Alaskan 8th grade science classroom.
I think this lesson would fill up an entire class period but maybe I need to add more??
Essential question: What do you think Alaska would look like in 100 years? Or what kind of effect do the glaciers melting have on culture and land? Or what kind of impact have that glaciers had on the culture and land (1000 years go and modern day)?
Glacier calving video , lots of the pictures here , or here , glacier retreat information , reading the glacier storytelling in The Blonde Indian, native artwork with glaciers in them.
explain in the beginning

I’m open for any advice, critiquing or input on material! I think glaciers are so neat and I hope to get that across to the students too. I know some/most have grown up with a glacier in their backyard but to stop and really think about what they have contributed to the land and culture here could be really eye-opening.

Athabaskan Fiddle History: 19th-early 20th century

I will be creating a lesson plan on Athabaskan fiddling for sixth grade music students (specifically, string players). This lesson will be 45 minutes long. This lesson will be paired with Meghan Johnson’s lesson plan about modern Athabaskan fiddling and the group that has developed to provide quality fiddle music education to students in Fairbanks.

The essential question will be, “How do other cultures influence the music we make?”, as we look at how the music of the trappers and settlers of Fort Yukon in the 1840’s influenced Athabaskan music, which led to fiddle music becoming a significant part of Athabaskan culture.

Students will be working with several different artifacts documenting the development of fiddle music in Athabaskan culture, including photographs from the Alaska State Museum Archive (like the one above), texts that give an overview of the history, and actual Athabaskan fiddle songs that have been passed down and continue to be played in the Interior (a page of one is shown below). There are also many YouTube videos Meghan and I will be working with, documenting the more current history of the fiddle music.

This is where I am a little stuck. I am trying to reconcile the idea that this is not a complete, laid-out lesson plan with activities, and yet I still need to have something for students to “do”. I want students to take a look at the evidence and come up with their own thoughts about how these different people groups affected the development of fiddle music in Athabaskan culture. Beyond that, I would love to have a discussion where they think about their own cultures and musicianship, making the connection that the music they play in orchestra was also created from many different influences. I would leave them to reflect on the question, “How does your cultural identity influence the music you make?”.