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Now live! Native Roots, Greener Futures: Walking the Kálhaculture Way. Our course is free for teens, their families and educators. Learn about climate change, indigenous wisdom and how to become an activist scholar in your community. If you are a parent or educator interested in a quality learning experience about the environment indigenous knowledge, traditional agriculture, mindfulness, medicinal plants and more, you will be interested in sharing this program with children and adults of all ages.
Native Roots, Greener Futures consists of 7 modules full of cases and activities that will guide students in applying indigenous knowledge to climate change problems and empowering them to become change-makers in their own communities.
The modules of this course are
1. Indigenous Ways of Knowing
2. The Problem: The Changing Climate is Changing Plants
3. Plants as Food, Plants as Medicine
4. Becoming an Activist Scholar
5. Stories of Activist Scholars: The Solution
6. The Očhéthi Šakówiŋ: A Case Story
7. Your Story Goes Here
This last module is very special as it provides a place for students to contribute to the course by sharing their vision and mission as change-makers.
Be the change!
“Movements of farmers and farm labourers […] are headed for serious trouble if they do not factor in the problems of climate change (which have already devastated agriculture in India); if they do not locate themselves in, and link their battles to, an agroecological approach.” – P. Sainath in “We Didn’t Bleed Him Enough”: When Normal is the Problem (counterpunch.org, 12 August 2020, first published in Frontline magazine) | More about climate change | United Nations on climate change >>
Listen to (Land) Back to the Future by Riley Yesno on the CBC Ideas website >>
“In less than 200 years, photography has gone from an expensive, complex process to an ordinary part of everyday life. From selfies to satellites, most of the technology we use and spaces we inhabit rely on cameras. […] While photographic documentation can aid in shaping history, it can also be a window into the horrors of the past.” – Read more or listen to Butterfly Effect 9 – The Camera on CBC Radio Spark 26 May 2023 >>
“The tribal households traditionally had a backyard garden that had multiple, multilayered and multipurpose indigenous trees, plants, herbs, and shrubs. […] The produce from this small garden was sufficient to meet the dietary and nutrition needs of a family for an entire year.” – Learn more about food crops that are resistant to pests, grow on poor soils, flourish under changed climatic conditions and offer high nutritive value | Food distribution >>
The tribal food basket has always been diverse and nutritious, including maize, minor millets like kodo and kutki, oil seeds like ramtila, along with fruits, leaves, rhizomes, mushrooms, meat and fish. […] We have pushed them out of their complementary relationship with ecology, way of life and time-tested nutrition >>