Connecting First Foods and Conservation

Positives

• This article allows students to engage with the concept of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).
• This article is visually appealing and densely packed with useful information.
  

Additional Prerequisites

• Students should understand what climate change is and how it endangers species around the world.
• Students should understand how eating more plants reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
  

Differentiation

• Students could evaluate whether the collective restoration effort described in the article succeeds at reducing human impacts on the environment and biodiversity.
• The "Feeding 7 Generations" graphic in the article could facilitate a classroom discussion on the health benefits of the illustration's suggestions and the barriers that keep many people from engaging with these suggestions.
• This article could serve as an example of how the preservation of habitats, biodiversity, and ecosystems leads to a reciprocal relationship where humans benefit from the plants, animals, and landscapes that they're protecting.
• This article could supplement a lesson on the historical environment that Native Americans lived in thousands of years ago, how that environment shaped their perspective at the time, and how that same context is impacting Native American perspectives now.