Tend, Gather and Grow
A Teaching Toolkit Connecting Students with Plants, Places, and Cultural Traditions
By Kim Gaffi, Mariana Harvey (Yakama) and Elise Krohn
Educating younger generations on the gifts of the land has always been a cornerstone of Indigenous teachings to strengthen mind, body, and spirit. As Skokomish Elder Bruce Miller said, “The Forest was once our Walmart.” The Pacific Northwest is teeming with wild edible berries, greens, roots, and seeds that are nutritionally superior to store-bought foods. Wild plants also provide medicine and materials for traditional technologies. Many common and accessible “weeds” are useful and can be found in our own backyards.
Tend, Gather and Grow (Tend) is a K-12 place-based curriculum dedicated to educating people about plants, local landscapes, and the rich cultural traditions that surround them. Tend focuses on native and naturalized plants of the Pacific Northwest region and includes Northwest Native knowledge, stories, and plant traditions. The curriculum toolkit consists of a teacher guide, six modules, videos, Coast Salish stories, plant identification cards, posters, games, recipes, and a garden guide. The 60+ lessons align with Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics (STEAM) education principles and Next Generation Science Standards. Here’s a glimpse at the main curriculum modules:
- Plant Guide – This module covers 20 northwest plants and includes 38 hands-on lessons. Teachers can choose lessons based on what plants are available, in season, and most relevant to students. Each plant overview contains information on identification, seasonality, where the plant grows, human uses, and ecological relationships. A K-12 lesson called Dandelion: The Useful Weed introduces students to the lifecycle of dandelion, how it improves soil quality, and how it benefits insects, grazing herbivores, and people. Two lessons for 6th to 12th graders dive deeper into making food and medicine from dandelions. Plants that are at risk for overharvest have not been included in the curriculum unless there is a specific emphasis on restoration
- Cultural Ecosystems Field Guide – This module is about reframing the settler/dominant narrative about Northwest Coast Native People. Typically, Native Communities in the Northwest have been characterized as hunter-gatherers. This is not an accurate representation, and erases the deep-time relationships and land cultivation practices of Native People. This module includes an overview lesson on cultural ecosystems and a field guide to camas prairies, saltwater beaches, food forests, wetlands, and urban landscapes. Students learn about reciprocity and explore how they might both receive the gifts of the land and give back to the land.
- The Herbal Apothecary – This module includes techniques for harvesting, processing, and preparing medicinal plants. Topics include herbal teas, infused vinegars, honeys, poultices, infused oils and salves, herbal baths, and aromatherapy.
Plant Technologies – This module investigates how plant qualities have been used for millennia to create human technologies. Students explore ways to gather, process, and make useful items including cordage, baskets, mats, tools, and dyes from plant materials. Lessons are rooted in STEAM concepts. - Tree Communities – This module introduces common Northwest trees and how they are valued for food, medicine, and traditional technologies. Themes include tree identification, ecological relationships, and life skills that we can learn from trees including generosity, building community, willingness, adaptability, and resilience.
- Wild Food Traditions – This module engages students with native and wild foods from a Coast Salish perspective. Seasonal lessons include spring wild greens, summer berries, healthy snacks in fall, and traditional beverages in winter. Native American stories, cultivation practices, ethical harvest techniques, and recipes are woven throughout lessons.
Our Tend, Gather and Grow development team (photo left) includes twelve people sharing a common passion for connecting people with plants, the land, and cultural traditions. Several of our team members have worked together in tribal health and natural resources programs and half are Indigenous. Over the years we have heard consistent requests for educational resources designed for youth. The Tend curriculum is our effort to meet that need. Collectively, we have knowledge and skills in teaching, environmental education, Northwest Native culture and storytelling, ethnobotany, herbal medicine, traditional technologies, art, media, social justice, and youth advocacy. Our team met monthly for several years to study plants in the seasons and co-design lessons and activities. Co-developing the curriculum has been an opportunity for our team to be in community with each other, share our love of plants, deepen our knowledge, and support each other along the way. We also worked with Native Elders, cultural specialists, and other regional experts in developing lessons—especially regarding storytelling and plant technologies. The curriculum includes quotes and instructions from these individuals.
Tensions
There are inherent tensions in non-native people using this curriculum, including concerns of cultural appropriation and misuse of plants and cultural landscapes. The curriculum exists, as we all do, within a painful and persistent history of colonialism, white supremacy, and systematic oppression. Historic and ongoing colonial settler practices negatively impact Native People and their traditional lands. Plant communities have changed drastically and many important cultural foods and ecosystems are diminished and difficult to access. Cultural appropriation and a misuse of knowledge among settler communities has undermined tribal sovereignty in several ways, including researchers claiming copyright authority over Indigenous knowledge and the overharvest of plant communities. For instance, as the health benefits of mountain huckleberry are more broadly learned, huckleberry stands cultivated by Native Peoples for thousands of years have been damaged and overharvested by non-native foragers and commercial harvesters.
To address these tensions, the Tend team has collaborated with tribal Elders and cultural knowledge keepers to ensure that information in the curriculum is appropriate to share broadly. Some plants and plant knowledge have been purposefully left out. All stories and plant teachings are included with permission from the storyteller or plant knowledge keeper. We have also created a video called Honoring Plants, Places, and Cultural Traditions that features Indigenous educators offering tools and advice to teachers wanting to use the curriculum. The Tend, Gather and Grow Teacher Guide and trainings support educators in adopting the curriculum responsibly. The toolkit also encourages educators and young people to be advocates and allies for Northwest Native peoples, tribal sovereignty, and cultural ecosystems. Lastly, we are encouraging schools to integrate featured plants from the curriculum in schoolyards and have created an Ecosystem Garden Guide that includes plant lists and basic garden installation directions.
Ways People are Using the Curriculum
T
end is adaptable to multiple learning environments, cultures, languages, participant ages, and abilities. We encourage educators and students to explore and add specificity around local language, culture, stories, and places as appropriate. We believe that cultural diversity is part of our richness as people. Educators can create opportunities for immigrant students to share their knowledge and traditions as well, and plant uses from around the world are included in the curriculum to encourage this.
The Tend curriculum is being implemented in a variety of settings including tribal schools, non-tribal schools, health and wellness programs, behavioral health programs, youth camps, and informal educational settings. Educators are also using Tend in various ways that meet their learning goals, fit their environment, and follow their students’ interests. Some schools focus on a plant each month (Wild Rose in September, Cattail in October, Doug Fir in November, etc). Some teachers are integrating Tend lessons into other courses like agriculture, nutrition, biology, ecology, social studies and the Since Time Immemorial Tribal Sovereignty curriculum. Teachers can also choose lessons and modules to accompany existing nearby landscapes like camas prairies or saltwater beaches and/or gardens or to accompany the creation of an ethnobotanical garden. Tend can also be the centerpiece of a full year-long course and we’ve designed a 180-hour Career Technical Education framework called Tend, Gather and Grow – Ethnobotany & Natural Resources Management to support this.
Tend Tribal Educator Cohorts
The Tend team has facilitated year-long tribal community educator cohorts where 16–20 educators from Washington tribes gather monthly for full-day workshops. Our first two internships focused on serving Western Washington tribes and this year we are honored to work with tribes from the Plateau region.
The Plateau internship includes seventeen tribal food gatherers, teachers, community educators, birth justice advocates, Indigenous language teachers, Elders, and youth who represent Yakama Nation, Colville Confederated Tribes, Kalispel, Nez Perce, Spokane, and Coeur d’Alene Tribe. This internship is led by GRuB’s Wild Foods and Medicines Tribal Relations Lead, Mariana Harvey (Yakama) and Traditional Plants Educator and Tend development team member, Elizabeth Campbell (Spokane/Kalispel).
This internship meets regularly over the year to integrate the Tend curriculum into various communities, schools, and programs. Participants also build teaching and group facilitation skills, learn about how to identify, harvest, and prepare many local plants, attune to the seasons, deepen a connection to the land, practice storytelling skills, and more.
Often the most enriching outcome for these tribal internships is the community and relationship building among the participants. Our participants are leaders within the tribal food sovereignty movement and it is a lot of work to carry. We hear that our gatherings feel like a ‘retreat’ where people can learn together, share ideas, and deepen bonds to each other and the earth. Gatherings take place in each participating tribal community, allowing us all to gain a deeper understanding of each other’s tribal history, culture, and of course foods and medicines! While we were in Spokane, a common highlight among participants was hearing a traditional story about the tamarack tree. When we were in Yakima, many remarked that it had been a very long time since they had eaten many of the roots that were served that day, and others were eating them for the first time. There is joy that radiates from our participants after our gatherings and the beauty is they bring that joy and spark of knowledge back home to their communities. ❀
Learning about and from plants has been a wonderful foundation to connect with my students and colleagues, since it’s something everyone can relate to on some level. I have been especially moved hearing stories that have been shared by experts in the field, native teachers/elders, as well as unique family stories that have emerged from my students, colleagues, and friends.
–Charlie Sittingbull, North Thurstaon High School Science Teacher
Photos by Elise Krohn