By Heidi Maloy, Cary Academy, Cary, North Carolina
OVERVIEW OF LESSON:
This lesson explores the meaning of land both environmentally and culturally, incorporating viewpoints of land from Indigenous stakeholders, ecologists, government entities, historians and economists. How we ascribe value to land definitely impacts how that land is transformed or restored. Who has a voice in this process and why? Do all narratives bring us back to Indigenous wisdom of land use?
SUGGESTED GRADE LEVELS: Grades 10-12
SUBJECTS: Social studies (environmental policy) and environmental science, including advanced coursework.
CORRESPONDING NATIONAL AND/OR STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA STANDARDS:
ESS.EES.6 Analyze how Earth’s systems impact humans and the biosphere.
Construct an argument to explain how natural hazards and other environmental problems may impact some human populations more than others.
DPI-NC standards Social Studies / Inquiry – American History
I.1.3 Gathering and Evaluating Sources ● Locate credible primary and secondary sources.
- Identify a variety of primary and secondary sources in support of compelling and supporting questions.
I.1.4 Developing Claims and Using Evidence
- Examine change and continuity over time. ● Analyze causes, effects, and correlations.
I.1.5 Communicating Ideas ● Construct written, oral, and multimedia arguments. ● Support arguments with evidence and reasoning while considering counterclaims. ● Use proper formatting in citing sources for arguments. ● Develop new understandings of complex historical and current issues through rigorous academic discussions. ● Participate in rigorous academic discussions emphasizing multiple viewpoints in which claims and evidence are acknowledged, critiqued, and built upon in order to create new understandings of complex historical or current issues.
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:
- How are the natural resources and inhabitants of land valued?
- What ecosystem services are so valuable they might be legally protected?
- What is lost and what is gained when land is developed?
- Who provides the key understandings of land and its uses?
- Is it possible to unify views of land to protect all of the uses and inhabitants?
LESSON OBJECTIVES:
Students will be able to determine the points of view surrounding ownership, resource use and depletion, and cultural connections to the importance of land.
An initial case study will be used to have students determine the stakeholders in a local environmentally significant problem involving land use.
Building on the POV work in the initial case study, students will explore a larger area that is currently a protected land parcel.
Students are asked to look at the value of this land through specific POVs that have informed our views of land use through time to the present day.
Student’s research on a specific POV will be put into practical action in a “congressional hearing” on what is the best future for this protected land parcel.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR THE EDUCATOR or RESOURCES TO EXPLORE FURTHER:
Two-eyed seeing In this TED talk by Rebecca Thomas a member of the Mi’kmaq woman, she describes an Indigenous way of valuing land as part of peoplehood which encompasses four key attributes – territory (land), sacred histories, ceremonial cycles, and language. This linking of language as a way of understanding the importance of land brings contrast to colonial views of how to view land.
National Forest Service land guidelines This site lists how land should be used within the confines of the National Forest System. The 2012 planning rule final directives present a stark contrast to Two-eyed seeing.
Cherokee views on land ownership This resource provides a Cherokee perspective on the value of land.
Robin Kimmerer on land Robin Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Potawatomi Nation, author, and botanist. She is the director of the Center for Native Peoples and a professor at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. This resource provides an Indigenous perspective of land that will be useful for students to better understand the value of land to native peoples.
Identifying Contemporary Rights Of Nature In The United States This provides an excellent background on environmental law and the rights of nature. Can a nonhuman sue for rights? That is the question that increasingly comes up with urbanization and climate change.
Why Parks are Important This blog post lists many values to society of park spaces.
The temperate forest – biome #6 This is an excellent introduction to the deciduous forest biome, listing many species that students have likely encountered if they live in the eastern US.
Who should the National Parks be run by? This video looks at returning the National Parks in the US to Indigenous tribes as reparations.
John Muir and Landscapes This article looks at the Murian POV of land as sacred as it is tied to his religious beliefs. This is in contrast to his writings about his youth which was filled with encounters with tribal citizens of Wisconsin and developing an understanding of how these tribes valued nature as sacred.
Gifford Pinchot and Landscapes The article presents Pinchot’s POV on land as having both social and economic value.
Aldo Leopold and the land ethic This is a quick introduction to Leopold’s most famous contribution to Ecology, the Land Ethic. This is an excellent talking piece for how Indigenous wisdom influenced his POV.
The American Buffalo lesson PBS This is a lesson prepared by Oglala Lakota tribal member Nikki Menard uses clips from Ken Burn’s documentary to link the attempted eradication of the American Buffalo to erase tribal peoplehood.
Umstead Park and Quarries This website provides an introduction to the initial lesson case study of the Umstead Quarry.
Brief History of Umstead Park This site provides background history for William B. Umstead State Park which is the protected land parcel for student research.
America’s Lost Landscape- The Tallgrass Prairie – Interviews both included and not in the documentary (American Indian POV and background stories from minute 13:32 – 40:04) This video clip provides multiple Indigenous viewpoints on the value of land.
Deb Haaland on land use This article provides the incorporation of Indigenous land values into the Department of the Interior by Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico.
Land Economics contains an excellent overview of land uses and Indigenous lands and how they were considered. This paper has specific reference to Indigenous land rights and also colonial views on land and its value.
Cantillon, an early Land Economist, looked at land as a commodity (see part 4) This article provides a POV reference for Cantillon’s views of land as having economic value.
Richard Cantillon and the value of land POV reference for Cantillon.
Francis Bacon on Nature This paper establishes Bacon’s philosophy of man’s need to dominate nature and bring it to submission.
John Locke and Property Rights This paper delineated Locke’s views on man having a divine right to land and the value established by the labor to make it useful.
Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak (Black Hawk) on land This article is a primer for understanding the colonial treatment of the Sauk tribe and its leader, Black Hawk. Providing a statement by Black Hawk on the land that if often quoted, “My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold.”
The urban to rural land continuum in the US This PPT has excellent images and definitions of land use that most students encounter. Slides 2-19 are most useful.
SPECIFIC STUDENT STRATEGIES & ACTIVITIES:
Identify how students see and value land from their initial perspectives. (Day 1, 60 minutes)
- What is their land experience? Students add 5 attributes of land areas they value to a Padlet (or done on a small whiteboard.) 15-20 minutes (5 for writing and 15 for sharing max.)
- Building your land use background: Do you live in an urban, suburban, exurban, or rural area? How can you tell? 10 minutes to show images and answer questions.
- What constitutes “nature”? Students find images online to share in pairs. How does this differ from where you live? Student pairs share their take on whether nature is around them or not where they live or go to school. 30 minutes.
Introducing the local environmental issue. (Day 2, 45 minutes)
The Umstead Quarry community-focused issue (Find a hot-button environmental land issue in your area if not in the Triangle area of NC such as loss of agricultural lands, red-lining and heat domes, right-of-way land loss for roadways or other infrastructure projects are all viable here.)
- What is the purpose/value of any quarry? Quick student computer search and share out on student whiteboards in pairs. 5-10 minutes
- Where is the Umstead Quarry located? Share map overview. 5-10 minutes
- How does this impact Umstead Park and surrounding recreation areas? requires largely speculation on the students’ part and should come up with several ideas that will fold into the following lesson pieces such as highway expansion, forest sales for development, preservation, etc. Allow for all for flow of ideas based on how they see land as a full class or again in small group shareouts. 25 minutes
Focusing on the present transformations of land in the area in which the students’ live. (Day 3, 60 minutes)
- What is the land around us being transformed into? Using Google Earth’s Historical imagery timeline. Teacher can demonstrate by looking at the school property. (download the pro version if possible for ease of projection) Let students call out addresses they go to often, not their homes, that they would like to see the timeline for prompting discussion of when changes occurred and if they know what was there originally. This allows students to look at urbanization, ecosystem fragmentation, and species confinement leading up to the value of community parks to National parks as time allows. 15-20 minutes
- What does the term park mean? Open call out of definitions. 5 minutes
- What constitutes nature in their (the students’) lives? This prompt gets at land use and naming and who has control of land. What does it mean to own land? small group discussions and report out or whole class discussion. 15 minutes
- Is a soccer park truly a park? This tends to lively discussion and can be used as a jumping-off place for taking on a POV of land use. You can assign different POVs to groups (individual land owner, soccer federation, town council, parents and children) or allow them to be a city/town spokesperson presenting their brief public statement on this question. Either share out in class or for homework. 15 minutes
Setting up the environmental and historical use of land. (Day 3 and 4, 145 minutes)
- What ecosystem developed here and why? What Indigenous tribes were present and how was land used? When and how did this change with colonialism? Have students work in small groups and do a quick search to find answers to these questions. The answers will be very cursory but that is the setup for the following activities. 5-10 minutes
- Using this map for getting an approximation of what tribes used the land where the Umstead Quarry is proposed for allow students to go over this either individually or in pairs. 5 minutes
- What is the eastern deciduous forest? This video gives a great intro through minute 3:30. Ask students how this was similar or not to your findings. 5-10 minutes
- Ask students to identify the key tree species found near your school using ChatGPT or Gemini or some other AI to research sources that the students then verify by cross-referencing. This is especially important when using AI as we know that not everything is accurate. For example, possible questions to ask: What tree species are native to Cary, NC? Are these species native to the Eastern Deciduous Forest? Do you have sources for that information? (These prompts can also be used for cross-referencing the AI information.) 20-30 minutes
- Have the students clip images of the trees and then head out on campus to find these species if present based on their image collections. 30-45 minutes
- To end this section of the lesson I ask: from their land map research, how do they think this area was different when the Tuscarora people or the members of the Lumbee Nation were occupants of this land? Initial hypotheses can be tossed out in free discussion followed by research to test these ideas. This follow-up research can be either in class or for homework as time allows. 20-30 minutes
- What happened to their tribal lands fast-forwarding to today? We look at this by returning to Google Earth to check what is there now including the school and surrounding communities. 15 minutes
Bringing it home for students to again share their views of land and to introduce the final project. (Day 5, 40 minutes)
- What changes to the land they frequent would be difficult for them to see in terms of use or development? 5-10 minute discussion
- What is our responsibility to the forest, the human inhabitants through time (including us), and nature itself? Free write for 5 minutes. Share out in class their ideas. 5-10 minutes
- If land use has value should the land for the Umstead Quarry/Park remain as is? If yes, why? If not, why? This quick discussion should be directed toward their personal POVs. This is the prompt introducing the focus of POV for the final project. 5-10 minutes
- This will lead to introducing the final project by considering how POVs have impacted land use in the United States. Class discussion 5-10 minutes.
The final project from introduction to participation in “congressional hearing.” (Days 6-11, 515 minutes)
- Returning to the essential questions to lead off how to approach how Umstead Park should be considered for its land and historical value as the Research Triangle area continues to grow in population. How might the iconic viewpoints of land use impact the value and use of the park land? Introducing the people they will be researching as to what role they have had – historian, economist, government employee, scholar, philosopher, and land inhabitant. 15 minutes
- Review the project guidelines handout and project rubric handout as resources for more detailed instructions (see handouts). Provide time for questions about the guidelines and rubric. Have student pairs choose/be assigned their POV for the project. 15-20 minutes
- This project is conducted over 5 class periods for research and organization plus 4-45 minute homework times to create a written report and presentation for each student pair. If time permits you might encourage your groups to set up a timeline for their work. 400 minutes in class/180 minutes homework
- The class presentations to the congressional committee (made up of two or 3 teachers/guests) will be assigned times and your reflection on the essential questions (both in-class reflection and written reflection as homework) will conclude this project. 80 minutes of class time/30 minutes homework
ASSESSMENTS:
- Formative assessments of check-ins and small writings are scattered throughout the lesson.
- The final assessment is the Congressional/Legislative Committee hearing on how to best value Umstead Park. Students will create a report for the Committee on their perspective and then take part in a “hearing” to determine the best use of the Umstead state park lands and whose viewpoints should be acknowledged in the process.
- Post presentation, students reflect on essential questions regarding with special consideration to, Is it possible to unify views of land to protect all of the uses and inhabitants? This will be assigned as an individual homework follow-up.
- There are several opportunities for homework above the research aspect of the final project that can be used for reflective thought or extensions as would be useful for your classes.
LEARNING EXTENSIONS:
Hike through William B. Umstead State Park utilizing a specific perspective either selected by the student pairs or randomly assigned. In preparation for the hike:
-gather background on William B. Umstead State Park’s history
-understand the ramifications of your POV (for example: Indigenous peoples connections, users for recreation, real estate developers, local companies wanting to harvest resources, historical value)
-Are there other perspectives to consider as well?
-Identify aspects of the park that they want to see on the hike.
-In-class session with a member of the Tuscarora People as to what this land meant to his or her tribe historically and how it is recognized as such now.
MATERIALS:
- Origins of Land Use Final Project Guidelines and Check-Ins Handout
- Origins of Land Use Project Rubric Handout
- Whiteboards (Students can use them as visuals for sharing their ideas.)
REFERENCES:
Please see the document entitled Bibliography, Origins of Land Use