Digital Story Telling Project

Understanding Geographic and Geologic Topics through Native Tales and Lore

Digital Story Telling of Alaskan Geo-Science and Native Tribal Lore 

Class: 7th Grade World Geography

Objectives:

1. Students will learn about major geographic and geologic topics that occur throughout the world by discovering them through Alaskan folk lore.

2. Students will learn or continue to use Sony Vegas Movie Studio or Windows Movie Maker to produce a final presentation of their lesson for the class to watch.

3. Students will make connections from past to present about understandings of events in the natural world.

Abstract:

            Students will learn about Alaska geographic and geological phenomena and tribal stories. These topics and lore contain many of the important values and beliefs of the Native Alaskan tribes as well as the keys to understanding what is happening in the present environment. Students will work in pairs to learn about a geographic or geologic topic and a Native tale that includes that topic. Along with knowledge of a group’s physical topic, each group will learn the importance of the beliefs that their tale contains. Groups will gather photos, music and video clips that will help them tell their story in a video of their own creation.

Each group will create a video that portrays the natural phenomena and the corresponding Native story with the materials that they have gathered. Students are to keep in mind that the telling of each story is very important to passing the beliefs and morals on to their classmates and they should do all that they can highlight the traditional values of their story. Alongside of these understandings each group should present the modern scientific understanding and research about the natural phenomena. 

Guiding Questions:

            How did the natural feature or phenomena effect Alaskan natives prior to contact with western understandings?  Why are the values and beliefs important to the Native Alaskan’s that hold them? How have these beliefs benefited people in the past? How are they important and useful now? What is the current understanding of this feature or phenomena and how is it still affecting life in Alaska?

Assessment:

         Each student will assess themselves according to the capacity matrix attached above and each group will present their video to the class. Students will be scored base on how well they can defend their evidence of learning and their ability to apply what they have learned on the matrix to other situations. Student videos should effectively teach the story and its themes to other students. 

Capacity Matrix: 

Capacity Matrix
Learners Name:				Information	Knowledge	Know-how	Wisdom	Evidence of Learning
Date Updated:								3-D Portfolio
AIM	Capacity	Capacity Breakdown	Alaska Content Standards					(Demonstrate, Document, Defend)
Read many Native stories about a geographic topic and select one to learn and teach.	Read at least one story from each of the five Native Alaskan cultures.	Cultural value exposure to environment	Geography B4: how and why do groups and individuals identify with certain places.
		Making Connections	History A: A student should understand that history is a record of human experiences and links the past to the present and the future.
	Identify the values and geographic topic included in each story and why the story's moral is important to survival.	Seeing importance in past and present	History A8: know that history is a bridge to understanding groups of people and an individual's relationship with society.
		Understanding Alaksan climate and challenges	History B 1-b. Students should comprehend human communities and their relationships with their climate, subsistence bas, resources geography and technology.
	Choose a story and topic to teach the class.	Choose to dig deeper and gain more understanding.
Gather Pictures, Music and other Material to tell the Story	Pictures should illustrate the story. Music should match the theme and draw in the observer.	See relationships between images and text	History C1: Use appropriate technology to access, retrieve, organize and present historical information
		Use music to create emotion and interest.	History C4: Use historical perspective to solve problems…and understand other traditions.
Create a video that will effectively tell the story to your classmates.	Demonstrate how the cultural values in the story were important in the past and remain important in the present.	Connect the geographic topic and values seen in the story with real life situations in the past and present.	History A: A student should understand that history is a record of human experiences and links the past to the present and the future.
	Explain how these values are scientifically relevant both in the past and presrent western understandings.	Demonstrate how the values provide for survival and good relationships in communities.
			Geography B8: Compare, contrast and predict how places and regions change with time.
			Geography D5: Analyze how conflict and cooperation shape social, econimic and political use of space.
Information: I have heard of this.
Knowledge: I understand and can explain this.
Know-how: I can do this on my own.
Wisdom: I can apply this to other situations and teach others.

List of Resources:

www.alaskahistorycourse.org

Another Culture/ Another World: Oleksa

www.alaskool.org

http://www.questconnect.org/ak_native_culture.htm