 The PlaceNames Project was initiated with funding from the Montana Office of Public Instruction (Indian Education for All, Ready to Go Grant, Round Two) and the Center for Learning and Teaching in the West (NSF ESIE Award #0119786). The project began with Michael Munson-Lenz's (6th grade elementary teacher and Salish descendant) dream of teaching Montana's Indian and non-Indian students concepts of science, appropriate and approved understandings of Salish and Pend d'Oreille life ways, understandings of self and social identities, and geographical technologies. Envisioned as a bi-cultural curriculum development project using a place-based pedagogical framework, The University of Montana School of Education, Hellgate Elementary, Missoula, Montana, and the Salish ~ Pend d'Oreille Culture Committee committed to a year long curriculum development process with a primary focus on the cultivation of authentic relationships between tribal and non-tribal educational entities. The geo-cultural curriculum developed from these efforts is entitled Building Worldviews Using Traditional Cultures and Google Earth. Students explore their "sense of place" and come to know the seasonal round that frame a Salish and Pend d'Oreille worldview. They come to understand that the relationship of the Salish and Pend d'Oreille people with the land and its plants and animals is a systematic way of knowing and a central organizing theme that continues to support and guide cultural traditions and habits of mind of the Salish and Pend d'Oreille people. A full text of the teacher's guide and curriculum, targeted for middle school students, can be located by clicking on the Resources link located in the left navigation panel and then selecting the Curriculum option. The curriculum is also being distributed by:
Our hope is to expand this bi-cultural curriculum development process in future years to cultivate and sustain vital and meaningful relationships with all of Montana's tribes. |
