Our project goal was to create digital artifacts showcasing local Indigenous land and it's "living history". We invited Indigenous community members to share their knowledge and personal connections to the land with students. Another goal of the project was to deeper our connection and involvement between the students and Indigenous members of the community through these authentic place based learning experiences. The project spanned across two schools in the communities of Ashcroft and Cache Creek and involved multi-grade involvement with the Grade 3/4 and 6/7 classes of both Desert Sands Community School and Cache Creek Elementary School. Originally we hoped to visit three local places and create three different artifacts, but faced the challenge of seasonal opportunities, planning and collaboration time with the people involved and choosing dates that coordinate between two schools, all with time left over to put together the final product before the quickly approaching deadline! In the end, we had to compromise on the locations and choose only one spring field trip instead of two, resulting in only two artifacts. We also originally planned on having a local Nlaka’pamux artist work with students to create the videos, but unfortunately he was unable make a visit to our school work with his schedule. Although we may have had some hiccups along our journey we are still very proud of what we accomplished and are hopeful that we can choose to continue on with this project next year and create more artifacts as there are so many more places we can experience! In the fall the Grade 3/4 students from DSCS and CCES took a trip to a local landmark, Soda Rock with Bonaparte Education Coordination Keith, who shared his personal connection to the place as well as the significance it has had in the Indigenous community. Once on location, students were equipped with cameras and sent to capture the landscape. Back at school, we compiled the photos and video, edited them and Mrs. Derksen used the iMovie app on the iPads to create the Soda Rock Video. This spring Grade 6/7 students from DSCS and CCES travelled to McLean Lake with many stops along the way to learn about Indigenous plants and photo document our experience. Local Bonaparte member, Archie Antoine was able to join us and share his knowledge of how to identify, harvest and use the plants in the area. Mrs. Derksen also interviewed Keith about his knowledge and personal connection to McLean Lake. Just as we did with Soda Rock, we collected all the photos and video and Mrs. Derksen was able to create another iMovie video of McLean Lake. Looking back on our original goal, we succeeded in creating authentic digital artifacts using the technology provided by SET-BC. We deepened our relationship between local Indigenous people and our students and school communities through the authentic learning experiences created by this project. We now have two videos of local places that are very significant to our Indigenous community. Our hope is that teachers in our district and community members can learn from these videos and have an experience of their own, whether they are able to physically visit the locations or not. We believe there is so much ecological knowledge and valuable history in these artifacts that will benefit the rural communities that surround us. Project Challenges
Project Celebrations
Curricular Connections & First Peoples Principles of LearningThroughout this project, I focused on the Grade 3, 4, 6, & 7 Arts Education curriculum (although there were many cross-curricular connections within the project), as I am the district Fine Arts Teacher and much of the learning took place during students Fine Arts time with me. The First Peoples Principles of Learning were also largely incorporated throughout the project.
EvaluationWe evaluated the success of our project in the following ways:
Advice to Others
0 Comments
|