Reciprocal Learning and Forest and Climate Leaders Retreat at Kemp Research Center

By Cherie Thunder

Wisconsin Fast Plants/ POSOH Intern

Sustainability Leadership Cohort 2013

Forest and Climate Leaders Retreat at Kemp Research Center

June 21-June 24

Woodruff, WI

With Memories of capture the flag, jumping from the high dive, and midnight Sun Drop raids, how can we forget the time spent at UW-Madison’s Kemp Research Center? High school students, community members, scientists, undergraduate and graduate students all gathered for the Forest and Climate Leaders Research Retreat in Woodruff, WI from June 21^st to June 24^th. The four day event was a great way to explore different careers in the STEM fields and to mutually learn from each other. Students and scientist alike were given the chance to exchange ideas and explore other cultures.  

Kemp Natural Resources Station is a research and teaching facility operated by the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Located in the heart of Wisconsin's Northwoods, Kemp Station's 235 acres support some of the last remnants of old-growth forest in the Lake States as well as research by many of the university’s scientists and students. 

Dr. Ankur Desai with the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Department at UW-Madison brought several of his graduate and undergraduate students to teach students about climate change topics related to the forest. SDI Education Coordinator Kate Flick collaboratively designed the retreat with Ankur Desai. “Ankur and I had been talking about how to spark students’ interests in science and decided to try exposing high school students to what scientists really do and the career pathways of how they got to where they are…shift their perspective that scientists just wear lab coats to something like they are actually real people and fun to boot. What better way than to hang out and do real science in the woods?” Kate said. In fact, the retreat was the first ever of its kind to involve high school students at UW-Madison’s Kemp Research station.

The retreat gave students the opportunity to begin understanding some of the impacts of climate change locally and globally and to acquire new science skills such as, performing real scientific research and carrying out experiments in the field.  One of the experiments included setting off smoke bombs to understand how air flows (or fluxes) through a forest and eventually ends up at a flux tower. These giant towers continuously take measurements on important green house gases. Two days were spent learning from the scientists and the of team graduate students in both the classroom and in the field at research sites in the area.  The students were able to do some soil and water testing, tree coring, and learning about meteorology and lakes. 

During the evening the students participated in nightly fires, talking circles, medicine wheel teachings, and a climate change decision making activity. The fire provided informal times to understand the stories of how students and scientists found and followed their career pathways.  By doing the decision making activity students gained an understanding of why important climate change issues need to be discussed and voted upon in order to find community consensus. We held a mock community meeting where participants took on different roles of community stakeholder interests in whether to build a wind farm near the College or not.  Stakeholders included College of Menominee nation students and staff, Menominee Tribal Enterprise employees, near-by homeowners, coal workers at a power plant, community interest groups, and scientists. The medicine wheel teachings provided a great way to share the Menominee culture and remind everyone involved why we were participating in the retreat in the first place. SDI food sovereignty intern Lloyd Frieson said, “The medicine wheel is something that brings all our nations together."  Dr. Ankur Desai also emphasized that science had its own strong traditions rooted in curiosity. 

Throughout the retreat everyone had responsibilities like cooking meals, washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen. Being a community leader is one of prominent goals of this cohort and was represented through doing chores daily and giving back to your place or community. These duties helped bring the group together and teach the students to be in charge of and responsible for their own actions. 

Everyone was surprised at how well they were able to relate to one another. The scientists, students, and interns all seemed to express and appreciate that their knowledge of science and culture was expanded by the end of the weekend. Overall the trip was a great success and we have high hopes for the future forest and climate leaders of the Wisconsin area.

SDI Welcomes a Hive of Honeybees

The CMN Sustainable Development Institute welcomed a hive of honeybees to their new home. SDI staffer Kate Flick transfers the bees to their permanent home. The Menominee word for bee is "amow."

SDI Representatives Attend Oneida Food Sovereignty Summit

Sustainability Education Coordinator Kate Flick and SDI Food Sovereignty Intern Lloyd Frieson attended a Food Sovereignty Summit this April and came back with fresh with ideas to implement at the CMN greenhouse and garden areas. 

The Summit took place in Green Bay from April 15-18, 2013 and was a collaboration between the Oneida Nation, First Nations Development Institute, Intertribal Agriculture Council and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College.  It offered three focused tracks in Sustainable Agricultural Practices, Community Outreach and Development, and Business Management, Finance, and Marketing.  The summit featured different ways Nations across the country were engaging in food sovereignty projects and even provided food from several tribal agricultural operations including walleye, wild rice, salmon, and white corn.

Winona LaDuke, Executive Director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, gave a keynote address that encouraged people to claim back their food system because it is intrinsically linked to cultural identity.  “Our knowledge system is who we are.  It’s been colonized.," said LaDuke, "We must recover our relationship to time…our sacred food allows us to be who we are.  The Creator did not instruct us to go to Walmart and shop.  Most of us have become people who shop…I don’t think we can say we’re sovereign unless we can feed ourselves”

LaDuke also linked our food systems to climate change and peak oil.  She noted that the food system is dependent on oil; as oil price goes up, food price goes up.  “We are shackling ourselves to a dangerous situation," said LaDuke, "-food insecurity.”

SDI representative Kate Flick presented on a panel about Engaging Native Youth in Agriculture and spoke to her efforts with the USDA POSOH project—designing place-based agriculture centered curriculum, working with college student interns, and engaging high school students in the Sustainability Leadership Cohort.  Several people were curious on the trend towards the technology needs, identities, and addictions of the high school generation with hands-on agricultural work. “Technology is never inherently good or bad," said Flick, " It’s a question of whether the technology can be used to engage critical thinking, rather than mindless use. A book can be mindless." With the video project, the high school students will work on in the cohort in which they implement a project and tell their story. "I am hoping that we can use technology as a tool to empower thought and action while also demonstrating a lifestyle that doesn't need to be “plugged-in” 100% of the time," said Flick.

After the summit, Lloyd reflected on the power of meeting with other people working on food sovereignty, “For me it was very informative and there was a lot of camaraderie with the other Nations.  It helps create a network while also learning about different [food] systems," said Frieson, "There was this guy from New Mexico and he had these big gardens, but they hardly get any water that way.  I’ll go next year just to catch up with some people and see what new projects are brewing.”

Many thanks to the Summit sponsors and organizers, as well as the Nations who provided food for the event from their agricultural operations.

POSOH Field Test Retreat: A Collaborative Place-Based Curriculum Process

Team members test curriculum lessons and provide feedback

Teachers, community members, cultural experts, undergrad and graduate students and other school practitioners from the Northeastern WI area gathered in Madison, WI last week to test curriculum lessons for POSOH, a Menominee place-based education project.  Kate Flick, SDI Education Coordinator, participated in testing lessons on the 8^th grade unit which focuses on the two following questions: “How does our place provide us with food?” and “In what ways do our food practices affect our place?” The process integrates scientific and tribal cultural practices into relevant learning material for local middle school students.

Students discover food from a place-based scientific viewpoint

Students begin to understand scientific concepts about how matter moves through earth systems, where it is neither created nor destroyed, but changed into different forms.  Linda Orie, former Menominee Indian Tribal School middle school teacher and current UW-Madison education and psychology graduate student, noted that the unit is very cylindrical. “[It is] reiterating cycles,” she noted, “Students learn about the carbon cycle, indigenous view of cycles, and the food cycle.”

Food serves as the centerpiece of the students’ intellectual journey. Students trace the basic transformation of food from digestion, to the plant life cycle, to different agricultural systems. First, students discover how the digestive process prepares food to serve as the building blocks of their bodies. In order to tell the story of a particular food, students learn the plant life cycle and how plants grow in different environments. They compare a continuum of agriculture practices commonly used in their area from traditional wild-rice harvesting, 3-sisters gardening practices, hunting, and berry gathering, to other corporate Food Inc. style production and high-tech family-owned dairy methane energy production farms.

Through curriculum pieces, students transform their idea of food from something purchased at the store to a much more in-depth understanding of sustainability values and land-use decisions. In the end, students will be able to assess and measure various sustainability indicators and understand the trade-offs of each system. Students also learn how the values and practices of agriculture systems impact their diet and sense of place. In the end, students should be able to “locate” and define their own value system and apply land-use decisions to a hypothetical land tract by using an integrated socio-cultural and scientific lens.

Food is all about science and biology 

Paula Fernandez, cultural resource specialist at Menominee Indian School District, touched on the integration between an indigenous world view and a scientific world view. “In all indigenous cultures, everything is a circle and we go through this life in a circle…connecting with other cycles, said Fernandez, "Even the fact that we come from the earth is central.” In this case, the food we eat, which comes from the earth, becomes a way for students to track this cycling in a scientific viewpoint.

Participants integrate Native words into lessons

The feedback process was demanding but rewarding.  After a particularly challenging exchange about what sustainability indicators to use and how to assess them, Hedi Baxter Lauffer, UW-Madison project head of POSOH, brought everyone together. “Having this process, where we actually get to step back and talk to each other about what we want students to learn is a gift,” said Lauffer, “Sometimes having a discussion about the hard stuff is painful, but then it really is a collaborative process when you stick with it.”

UW-Madison project head of POSOH Hedi Baxter Lauffer

Last summer, the group participated in a rigorous design process where they were asked ”What should area 8^th graders take away from a place-based unit focused on food, sustainability, values, and land use practices?” Since then, the UW-Madison curriculum development team transformed the content into practical ideas, lessons, and activities which follow the new State and National Common Core educational standards. The 8^th grade unit will continue to undergo development and will be field tested later this year. If you have any questions, please contact field test participant and College of Menominee Nation Sustainable Development Institute Education Coordinator Kate Flick.

A birds eye view of the field test retreat