Welcome educators!
This page provides a comprehensive fifty minute curricula of Wisconsin’s federally recognized tribes for middle school, high school, and undergraduate level teaching. We are undergraduate seniors studying Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. We composed this curricula as an Act 31 tool for educators, with the guidance of Jessie Conaway and our Bad river Ojibwe community partners. During our semester-long course, we visited the Bad River reservation twice and worked with community members to create this curricula. The curricula for each level touches on all eleven federally recognized tribes, but focuses primarily on the themes of sustainability, stewardship, and sovereignty within the Bad River Ojibwe.
This is a hands-on curricula that utilizes worksheets and map interpretation. The necessary background knowledge and resources for educators interested in implementing this curricula can be found on this page. We personally piloted this curricula at Monona Grove High School and received a positive response from the students. Please follow the links below and consider implementing this curriculum within your own classrooms.
Miigwech (thank you),
Patty Fahey and Jared Swanson, UW Madison Undergraduate Environmental Studies Seniors
The knowledge check questions are designed to assess students’ background knowledge of Native American culture and history. They can should be used with the lesson plans at any level. An answer key is provided.
Knowledge Check and Answer Key
Students’ understanding of the maps can be assessed with the map questions below, which includes both questions on the Bad River map and a map-based quiz on Wisconsin’s Indian reservations.
The middle school lesson plan is a basic, introductory lesson on Wisconsin’s Indian tribes and the concepts of sustainability and sovereignty.
The high school lesson plan builds on the middle school plan and includes current issues, including the recent mining controversy in the Penokee Range.
The undergraduate lesson plan further broadens its scope to include Wisconsin’s educational mandate of Act 31 and the recent history of cultural conflict during the Walleye Wars.
INFORMATIONAL LINKS:
Wisconsin DPI’s American Indian Studies Page
VIDEOS:
“Why Act 31?” with Aaron Bird Bear
Bad River Tribal Perspective on Mining (with Tribal Chairman Mike Wiggins, Jr.)
Manoomin (Wild Rice) with Fred Ackley, Jr.
Links to educational resources: