The Tribal Adaptation Menu

• This comprehensive report provides numerous suggestions for resource management practices that help adapt to climate change using the knowledge of tribal and academic communities in the Upper Midwest.
  
• Students will learn about ways to adapt to and prevent climate change by working with nature and not against it.

Positives

• This document was written by many different tribal members and gives students an excellent look at some of the ideals that are important to the culture of Indigenous peoples.
• Examples for the adaptations given will help students see how they can actually be used in their own communities.
  

Additional Prerequisites

• Some students may need the terms extraction, paradigm, reciprocity, disseminating, hydrologic, riparian, anthropogenic, ambient, fragmentation, and others defined prior to reading the document.
• It may be beneficial to go through the glossary beginning on page 49 with students prior to reading the document, and encouraging students to refer back to it.

Differentiation

• Students can analyze the cover art and discuss why the artist may have made certain artistic choices. After speculating, students can read the Cover Art paragraph on page 2 and see why the artist really made those choices.
• Students can discuss the Western perspective as described in the Tribal Culture and Adaptation section, and compare it to the perspective of the Anishinaabe perspectives. They can discuss why the latter perspective is needed to address problems associated with climate change.
• Students can work to identify common themes that are present throughout the document, such as the idea that a gift should be given in exchange for information or permission.
• Students can work individually or in groups, each reading about one adaptation or category of adaptation, and then teach the rest of the class what they learned.
• Students can identify a climate change-related problem in their area and propose one or a combination of adaptations from the document to address this issue.
• Students can do in-depth research on the tribes primarily involved in the creation of this resource, Ojibwe and Menominee. This can be done either prior to reading this document, as a means of building background knowledge, or after reading this document, as a way to extend learning.