Educational kits explore Northern Plains history

Page 13

Grade 4 students in Saskatchewan, and even farther afield, can now learn about the history of the Northern Plains and its people, thanks to a new line of educational products.

The People in Their World educational products had their official launch at Wanuskewin Heritage Park in mid-January, but creation of the kits actually began 10 years ago as a joint initiative involving the provincial department of education, the Saskatoon separate and public school boards, the Gabriel Dumont Institute, the University of Saskatchewan, and the Meewasin Valley Authority and Wanuskewin.

The result of that collaboration was "a very comprehensive educational kit geared towards Grade 4 classrooms," according to Deborah Black, who had been involved in putting the original educational kit while working at the university.

"It had everything you would ever want in teaching Aboriginal education. It's all from a historical perspective. And the kit was so comprehensive. It had posters to put up in the classroom, a whole teachers' guide with absolutely everything, laminated photographs, illustrations, games, activities - you name it. And when it went out for focus testing - it was only ever done as a prototype - and it was focus tested around the province by a number of teachers, and they said 'we want it, we love it, and we can't possibly afford it, because it's so comprehensive.'"

Because the cost of the kit put it out of the reach of teachers, use of the kit in its original form had been limited to internal education programs at Wanuskewin for the past 10 years. But about six years ago, Black explained, the people at Wanuskewin approached her about taking the kit, and turning it into a marketable educational product as a way to help the park fund additional programs.

"I knew how wonderful the material was, and I said 'absolutely.'"

Black formed People in Their World to handle the task of turning the original educational kit into something more easily affordable by educators.

"And what we did with the materials is we pulled pieces out of the original, very comprehensive kit, and turned them into smaller, stand alone modules that teachers could afford," she explained.

The result of efforts so far are two educational kits, a hunting tools kit, which examines the evolution of hunting tools and practices on the Northern Plains, and a bison supermarket kit, which looks at the traditional uses of the different parts of the bison by First Nations people.

"Both the kits are packaged in a traditional Plains Aboriginal packaging method, which is called a parfleche. There was no predetermined size for a parfleche; it just depended on what they wanted to carry in it, whether it was a sacred pipe or clothing, or food items or whatever. And we used a material that's actually called buckskin, it's a paper product called buckskin, and we've explained on the back of the package the significance of the parfleche wrapping," Black said.

"Every kit will always contain a full-colored poster, an activity booklet aimed at Grade 4, and then some kind of hands-on activity. So with hunting tools, the poster shows the evolution of hunting technologies on the plains."

The poster highlights the changes in hunting techniques and tools over time as the people of the Northern Plains adapted to changes in environment and prey, from spears when the animals being hunted were slow moving, to dart points when prey became swifter moving and the use of the atlatl was adopted, to arrowheads when the bow and arrow came into use.

"So the poster shows all of those things, and we've actually got the photographic reproductions of the points on this time line on the poster, and discussion about the type of tools that were used with these points . . . and the hands-on activity is one each of a cast spear point, dart point and arrowhead. And we've cast them in rubber, so nobody gets hurt," Black said.

"We also worked with the Elders, and are very conscious of all of th protocols that are inherent in the culture. And we make sure that they approve of all the materials. So they've had an involvement in this. Their attitude, or course, with projectile points is that if you find a point, its not yours to do anything with. So we actually commissioned the creation of all of the original points, and we have the person's permission to reproduce them for the kits," she explained.

"The second kit that we produced is bison supermarket. And it has the full-colored poster of the outside of the bison and it also shows the skeletal structure and some of the internal organs that they would have used as well. And there's a legend along the side that details all of the uses for the different body parts. Again, there's an activity booklet, and the hands-on in this case is the tracer template. And in the activity booklet, there's information on how to use the tracer template, different activities with that. We also have separate teacher guides that were created so that the teachers can get additional background information and also there are some activities that are detailed in there for classroom use," she said.

Each kit is also available in a "value added" format, called a school case.

"In the first school case, you get a hunting tools kit, you get the teacher information, the coloring book, and there's a CD-ROM in there, and the CD-ROM contains all of the interactive computer animation stations that are currently in the main exhibit hall at Wanuskewin. So there's an absolute wealth of information in there. And the narration is all Aboriginal. And the amount of information, from games that kids would have played, to tracking animals, musical instruments, toys that they would have made, to use of plants, to how to hunt bison, to traditional skills like making pots and tipis and arrowheads and that kind of stuff . . .and then we've also created a culture areas map. So it shows all of North America, and its got all of the land texture on it. Andit shows in context where the Northern Plains are relative to the Great Plains the boreal area, sort of things. You also get one each of the 12 projectile points that are shown on the poster," Black said.

"And the second case is the bison theme specifically. So its got the bison kit in it and the teacher information. It's also got a three-dimensional wooden bison puzzle and an activity sheet that explains three different uses for this little puzzle in the classroom, things you can do with it. And then there's another package contained in there that has a full-sized reproduction of a bison hoof print, front and back hooves. They're cast in a rubber material. There are reproductions of bison horns and the size is of a year old bison . . . and they are reproductions because Aboriginal people don't like the idea of things being cut off just for the sake of cutting them off. So they don't want us to use real bison horns, in this case. So they very much approve of the reproductions. And then there's also a piece of bison hide with hair. It's not a big piece, but its just enough for them to get the sense of the texture and thickness of the hair and so on. And there's another activity booklet there with those three items that details three activities for each of those items as well."

The aim of the educational kits, Black explained, is "just to generally further the understanding of the First Peoples of the Plains." The kits are aimed at Grade 4 students because that is the grade level where Saskatchewan students first begin studying Aboriginal cultures.

The kits provide a valuable tool for teachers, Black feels, because it provides information that previously wasn't available from any other source.

"That's why the original kit was actually created, because there was simply no information for teachers out there related to Plains culture. It didn't even exist. It's astonishing," she said.

"And six years ago, when Wanuskewin asked me if I was interested in running wit the idea, I went online to see what was out there, what had been done, and nothing had changed. So the need was still huge out there, and the response that I've gotten from teachers is, well, its about time we talked about ourselves. And when I was dealing with the Elders on all this information, they said it's very important that people understand about us. So they were fully supportive of the whole thing, right from square one."

Anyone wanting more information about the People in Their World educational kits can visit the company's Web site at www.peopleintheirworld.com, call 244-7489, or e-mail to info@peopleintheirworld.com.