American Indian Studies Topics: Indigenous Ecology

ANIS/HUM 4004
3 hrs.
Spring semester 2009
MW 2:30 - 3:45 PM
MCB 134

(Please note: The following description and syllabus are subject to change.)

Students will participate in a seminar that discusses key papers and books that deal with how American Indians interacted with their world. Fifteen hours of service learning activites will provide an additional opportunity to learn from elders, children, plants and animals. Discussion will follow a circular, four-part curriculum framework developed at Dinne Indian College, which includes thinking, acquisition of knowledge, incorporation into one's personal lifestyle, and mastery.

Students will be assigned one or two readings per week, after which they will take a short-answer quiz and apply the curiculum framework to the classroom discussion. The service learning component will include 1) vegetable gardening and maple sugaring with students at a local elementary school; 2) visiting with elders; and 3) preparing and sharing indigenous foods with the group.

Objectives:

1. Students will begin to percieve the world around them from an indigenous viewpoint.

2. Students will support each other in classroom and service-learning activities, with the common goal of succeeding as a group.

3. Students will find ways to incorporate indigenousness into their daily lives, making them more resilient to the perturbations and challenges of life in the future.

Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor.

Harry Dyer, hadyer@vt.edu, 1-1843
Jeff Kirwan, jkirwan@vt.edu, 1-7265

Grading:

25% classroom attendence and participation
25% quizzes on weekly readings
25% final exam
25% service learning component

Extra credit for attendence at field trips, such as prescribed fire and fish hatchery demonstrations, local foraging.

Schedule

Week one: Overview. Instructors lead discussion of an article or book chapter(s). Students receive first reading assignment. Quiz the following week.

Week two: Students lead class discussion of last week's reading, receive next reading/essay assignment, followed by quiz.

Week three: same as week two. Etc.

Service Learning at Smithfield

We have a number of tasks that need to be completed, in preparation for planting of indigenous crops:
  • Plant pawpaw, shagbark hickory and serviceberry seeds and seedlings
  • Plant strawberries in last year's corn and tree plots.
  • Prepare area downslope of the orchard for mounds of corn, beans and squash.
  • Plant potatoes in the garden area at the bottom of the slope.

Service Learning at Heritage Hall Nursing Home

Come in groups of 3 - 4, expect to interview up to eight elders
Best times: Mon - Sat, 10:15 - 11 AM or 1:30 - 3:30 PM; Sun. 1:30 - 3:30 PM
Before coming, contact: Debra Jensen, 951-7000 or debraleneave@aol.com. Try to give as much advance notice as possible. (You may also schedule with Emily Morgan, Theresa Peyton or Jessica Jennings.)
Directions: 3610 S Main St., Blacksburg, VA 24060
Objective: Appreciate the value of elders as a treasure-trove of traditional ecological knowledge.
Example Questions:
1. What home remedies do you remember taking as a child?
2. What special foods do you remember as a child? What did you eat at Thanksgiving, Christmas?
3. What do you remember about your grand-mother, grand-father?
4. Where did you grow up? How is it different from today?

Service Learning at Prices Fork Elementary School

We will teach children how to tap maple trees and make maple syrup. Last year we went out on Mondays and Wednesdays between 9:15 - 11:00 AM. Scheduling will take place during class.

Service Learning with Tazewell 4-H

Tazewell County 4th graders will be visiting the VT campus in April to learn about careers and campus life. Meet at Cheatham Hall at 12:05 PM (10 min. before the group arrives) and stay until 1:15 PM. Plan on having two groups of 10-15 for 20 minutes each.

Service Learning at SELU

Weather permitting, we will help with a prescribed burn to restore native grasses at SELU Conservancy in Montgomery County. Directions from Interstate 81: take Exit 109 onto Route 177/Tyler Avenue toward Radford. Soon after, turn left onto Lovely Mount Drive. Proceed one mile and make a left onto Dry Valley Road for 1.3 miles. Turn right on Sale-Selu Lane the entrance to Selu, which is a long gravel road through a pasture. Arrive by 3 PM for set-up. Stragglers may come up to 4 PM.

Other Service Learning opportunities (must apply through the VT Service Learning Center)

  • US Forest Service
  • Mountain Lake
  • Pilot St. Project (Roanoke)
  • Warm Hearth

Service learning time sheet

Service Learning Application


Textbooks:


Earth Democracy (Vandana Shiva)
Stalking the Wild Aspargus (Ewell Gibbons)

Additional Reading List:

1. Plows, Plagues and Petroleum (William Ruddiman)
2. Prehistoric Native Americans and ecological change (Delcourt and Delcourt)
3. Accounts of the DeSoto Expedition (Elvas, Inca, Sauer)
4. Native Science (first 83 pages)
5. Vegetable Gardening Guide and Seed Catalog
6. Maple Sugaring by Frances Densmore
7. History of Travel (William Strachey)
8. Changes in the Land (William Cronin)

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