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

Module IX - Cold as Ice

Glaciers, Methane and Permafrost

Explain:

There certainly is a wealth of information about glaciers and how almost all of them are receding around the world!  Glaciers certainly have played a major role in shaping the landscape of North America. Because of that, it’s rather important to understand their processes and cycles!

The information provided about the Jakobshavn glacier is rather amazing. The TD video showing how melt water can penetrate the depth of the glacier and then lubricate its bed is very cool. This glacier flows at a simply amazing rate. Imagine the erosion and shaping of the landscape that is occurring right now under all of that ice!

image from sciencepoles.org

Here is a little more information about the glacier. Jakobshavn - NewScientist

I also found the methane pockets forming in lakes to be very interesting! I did not know there were such concentrations that came out of the permafrost. I wonder if there are homes that have problems with collecting methane in them as it seeps from the ground. I know that this has happened in the area of Michigan where I grew up, but those homes were built on an old dump…interesting.

Extend:

My 7^th grade students love to learn about geologic processes that occur in Alaska and also in other parts of the world. A lot of what my class does is to look at these processes and think about how they impacted history and how people have adapted as these processes changed over generations.

It is very interesting to take a look at ice and sediment cores to get an idea about temperature and precipitation in an area over a period of time. Together with archeological findings we can learn a lot about the history of that area.

Core from Tosina Lake (image courtesy of the following link)

Coring around Cordova

Evaluate:

Seeing the landscape change with the warming of winters, disappearing lakes and rivers and spruce beetles killing off many trees demands an explanation. Folks desperately are seeking answers to solve the problems posed by a changing world. However, looking at climate records in oral and written tradition, it doesn’t take long to discover that the world is a dynamic and changing place. 

The REO Speedwagon Philosophy: "Ridin' the Storm Out" or "Rollin’ with the Changes"

As people we have a couple of options: we can try to ride the storm out, wait for the thaw out while hoping things don’t change or we can roll with the changes and adapt.  Shishmaref and many other places will have to adapt or be lost to the earth’s changing landscape. Soon enough I think a lot of folks will be tired of the same old story and decide to turn some pages …hopefully the earth will be here when we’re ready to roll with the changes…

Module VIII: Sea Ice

Module VIII: Sea Ice

Explain:

The most interesting thing that I learned from this module was the extent that arctic sea ice is melting each year. Also interesting is that there is a positive feedback loop aiding in this arctic climate change. The TD diagrams that illustrate the reflection of the sun’s energy from ice and then absorption of that same energy by the uncovered water is very helpful in understanding this relationship. 

The "Watching Ice Melt" lab made me think about water level change as a result of melting sea ice. Although I knew that ice had more volume than water I did not consider the effect that this would have on ocean levels if arctic ice continues to decline.  I am very interested to learn in the next module about the melting of terrestrial ice.

Extend and Evaluate:

After a little bit of digging I found the NASA site to be very informative when understanding sea ice coverage and minimum and maximum extents of the ice. I believe we looked at this site in a previous mod., but the information is still very relevant and the briefing materials that I have linked here are very informative and graphical.

Courtesy of NASA

The image above shows the age of the sea ice and displays the importance of short cool summers in growing ice on both sea and land as well. 

In my social studies classes I won’t be using a lot of this material. However, if longer summers persist the natural processes and populations will continue to be forced to adjust accordingly. 

Three Colleagues:

I commented on Amy’s Explore Alaska blog and agreed with her that the watching ice melt lab was very cool and I mentioned that some genuine learning is taking place in her classroom!

Konrad has some awesome pics again on his blog and a link to information about a permafrost tunnel in Fairbanks!

David Wages poses an interesting idea that the increased melting might be causing more cooling. I also think this is an interesting proposition.

Module VII: Manbearpig

Module VII: The Elusive Manbearpig

Explain:

During this module I really enjoyed learning about how stars create elements and astronomers are finding exo-planets surrounding other stars. Also, the ruffled sea slug is amazing what a sweet way to always have energy! Culturally, I thought it was very cool how the natives are documenting the changing landscape around them and are adapting to it.

After reading other folks’ blog I was surprised again at the level of alarm about immediate threats of global warming. All of this fire, brimstone and oceans flooding reminded me of an elusive animal called…Manbearpig.

If you haven’t seen it already here is the South Park satirical exposition of the global warming issue.  South Park: Manbearpig

***Warning*** This is South Park folks - ergo, NOT family friendly.

Watch at your own risk.

Extend:

Unfortunately, I cannot imagine using any of the material in the mod for use in my History and Geography classes. I found discussions about microbes in permafrost interesting and I was further educated my Matt Hunter’s blog about how plants can offset CO2 emission from these microbes but only to an extent.

Evaluate:

The usefulness and relevance of this module for my classroom isn’t much, but I did find the information about the creation of elements informative. Also, the acidification of the oceans is a very geographically and culturally significant one.

Based on previous and current material in this course, stating that I don’t believe man-made global warming isn’t settled science certainly won’t get me much love in this forum, but I am plenty used to it.  I think it’s important to keep a critical eye out about everything and test its truth. Folks who gad about stumping for global warming on their private jets and scientists claiming that consensus offers proof of a theory both appear quite ridiculous (as this post might to you).  Actions like these do little to convince common folks that global warming begs radical changes to their lives.

Comments on Colleagues’ Posts:

1. I found it rather interesting that Tracy thought a good solution to the Earth’s problems was for folks in Haiti to stop breeding.

2. I lauded Konrad for his critical look at discharge of CO2 from permafrost microbes.

3. Finally I was surprised at Eric’s alarmism.