This video explores a prescribed burning operation that was carried out by the Klamath Tribes and The Nature Conservancy, the historical significance of the Klamath Tribes being a part of this process, and the environmental benefits of prescribed burns.
Students will learn that the Klamath Tribes have collaborated with The Nature Conservancy for over 20 years, this operation marks a return to ancestral traditions for the Klamath Tribes, and prescribed burning helps maintain the health of dry forest ecosystems.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This video is inspiring and well-produced.
This video is concise and easy to understand.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should understand why smaller, more frequent fires are good for dry forests.
Students should understand how wildfires can impact ecosystems and human communities.
Differentiation
This video could supplement a lesson about forest ecosystems, Indigenous practices, or sustainable forest management.
This video could accompany open-ended questions about the differences between traditional Native American practices and mainstream American culture and values.
This video could support a mini-lesson on land sovereignty and why it's important.
This video could enhance a classroom discussion on the American government's effectiveness at rectifying its current and past maltreatment of Native American tribes.
Scientist Notes
This video resource highlights the partnership between The Nature Conservancy and the Klamath Tribes to carry out a prescribed burn in the Sycan Marsh, reducing the risk of wildfire in the Klamath Basin. The video features interviews with both fire experts and tribal members who share their history as stewards of the land and their enthusiasm about future conservation efforts. The resource is filled with video clips of a prescribed burn being carried out and the healthy forests that result. This resource shows crucial collaboration in the face of a warming climate and growing wildfire risk and is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
MS-LS2-1 Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.
MS-LS2-4 Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Speaking & Listening (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.8.2 Analyze the purpose of information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and evaluate the motives (e.g., social, commercial, political) behind its presentation.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.3 Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Civics
D2.Civ.5.9-12 Evaluate citizens' and institutions' effectiveness in addressing social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national, and/or international level.
Dimension 2: History
D2.His.14.9-12 Analyze multiple and complex causes and effects of events in the past.
