Students will learn and apply respectful communication protocols when engaging with local California tribal communities. Students will incorporate Indigenous voices, perspectives, and feedback into their understanding and representation of local histories and cultures.
Students will examine the historical and cultural significance of land acknowledgments and analyze their use in educational and public settings. Students will identify the Indigenous peoples whose ancestral lands they occupy and begin to explore the importance of recognizing those connections.
This lesson introduces the concept of Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Students will be shown examples of Yurok TEK and will be introduced to gathering policies. Students will evaluate maps as they relate to reservation land versus public land use. This lesson is designed for middle school students and includes supports for multilingual learners at the Bridging proficiency level.
In this lesson, students will review the importance of the Chah-pekw O’ Ket’-toh Stone Lagoon Visitor Center and Sue-Meg State Park. Students will be introduced to the California State Park Reexamining Our Past Initiative. Using different California State Park websites, students will analyze how the parks can be updated to reflect their Indigenous history.
This lesson addresses a brief history of Yurok and other Indigenous People in Humboldt County in relation to early exploration efforts and the change that was brought about from the fur trade and gold rush. This lesson also includes the brief history and importance of the Chah-pekw O’ Ket’-toh Stone Lagoon Visitor Center and Sue-Meg State Park. This lesson is designed for middle school students and includes supports for multilingual learners at the Bridging proficiency level.
This middle school unit offers teachers a meaningful and engaging opportunity to bring California’s Indigenous history and contemporary partnerships into the classroom through the lens of the Yurok Tribe’s work with California State Parks. Through four thoughtfully designed lessons, students will explore the ancestral and present-day relationship between the Yurok people and the lands now known as Sue-Meg State Park and the Chah-pekw O’ Ket’-toh Visitor Center in Humboldt County. The unit highlights themes of land stewardship, cultural preservation, Yurok language integration, and historical reexamination, and introduces students to the significance of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in caring for the land.
This lesson analyzes coming-of-age and cultural influences on beliefs about puberty, adolescence and menstruation. By exploring Native American cultural beliefs about coming-of-age including women’s coming-of-age ceremonies students analyze diverse perspectives on health, puberty, and the changing roles and responsibilities of adolescents in their communities.
