Indigenous

The Natural World Speaks: Writing for the Rights of Nature

This creative writing activity prompts students to explore the Rights of Nature movement, which seeks to give natural entities legal personhood. By writing short stories or poems from the perspective of a natural entity, students will give nature a voice, reflect on environmental ethics, and consider the complex dimensions of granting nature legal rights.

Indigenous Media Making: Affirming Identity

In this activity, students explore various perspectives on cultural pride within Indigenous communities worldwide, critically assessing media messages related to Indigenous culture and pride. Through this analysis, students gain insight into how both contemporary and traditional media play pivotal roles in fostering social change and cultural continuity, while also contemplating the profound impact of identity on shaping individual perspectives.

Keep America Beautiful: The Crying Indian (1970)

This is a great media example for discussing environmental discourses and ideology. It utilizes the eco-utopian discourse (often represented by indigenous and First Nations peoples) to promote conservationist environmentalism, which aligns with anthropocentric environmental ideology.

How An Indigenous Worldview Can Preserve our Existence

This video offers a strong discussion on comparing the dominant worldview that is driving the world system with an indigenous view of life. Synopsis: “Our dominant ways of life are guided by an underlying worldview that has been the main driver behind climate change, pandemics and extinction rates. Overwhelming evidence reveals that our original Indigenous, nature-based worldview is an antidote. Supporting and Re-embracing this interconnected way of living is the most urgent course of action we must take.”

Indigenous Cosmology: The Honorable Harvest

This short video is part of a series called “Seeding the Field: 30 Years of Transformative Solutions,” which celebrates some of the best moments of the Bioneers conference through the last 30 years. “Indigenous peoples worldwide honor plants, not only as our sustainers, but as our oldest teachers who share teachings of generosity, creativity, sustainability and joy. By their living examples, plants spur our imaginations of how we might live. By braiding indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) with modern tools of botanical science, Robin Kimmerer, professor of Environmental Science and Forestry, of Potawatomi ancestry.”

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