I. General Information
School Name: Horse Lake Elementary
School District: SD#27 Cariboo-Chilcotin
Inquiry Team Members: lisa.pugh@sd27.bc.ca, margaret.ramsay@sd27.bc.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: lisa.pugh@sd27.bc.ca
II. Inquiry Project Information
Type of Inquiry: Numeracy & Literacy Project
Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Intermediate (4-7)
Curricular Areas Addressed: Applied Design, skills & Technology, Arts Education, Mathematics / Numeracy, Science, Social Studies
Focus Addressed: Indigenous understandings (for example, Traditional Knowledge, oral history, reconciliation), Community-based learning, Core competencies (for example, critical thinking, communication, problem solving), Experiential learning, First Peoples Principles of Learning, Indigenous pedagogy, Inquiry-based learning, Land, Nature or Place-based learning, STEM / STEAM
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Can we utilize the hands-on, inquiry based, experiential Indigenous pedagogy of hide processing to increase student engagement in science and numeracy?
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
Scanning: We looked at students’ engagement with basic measurements of area and perimeter, and their understanding of chemical processes and chemistry applications like acids and bases. Student’s were not excited about doing calculations with area and some struggled with relating to the concept of square cm. We asked students if they had adults that they felt believed in them, as well as if they knew what they were learning and why. This was to get at these ideas of general lack of excitement and being fuzzy on the concepts of cm2. In general, they didn’t value the learning and felt their learning lacked a connection to the real world. Many couldn’t see why or how they would use this learning in the future.
Focus: Numeracy and science are so important. At the grade 7 level, the basics become platforms for further spiralled learning in chemistry and mathematics in high school. Relating concept of area in cm2 to real world examples could help to concretely formulate that in students’ minds. Chemistry with acids and bases are in everyday life and relating that to cultural practices like hide tanning and processing further brings community, culture and relevancy to learning.
Hunch: We always need to make learning more experiential and hands-on, and numeracy is not often that way in grade 7.
New Professional Learning: We did not know how to brain tan a hide. We all had done lots of raw hide, but not brain tanning which is a much more difficult process. Relating cm2 to hide tanning was conquered in a unique way by incorporating the widely held Indigenous knowledge that one animal’s brain will be enough to cover their own hide. This idea of how much brain matter do you need in cm2 to cover a particular area became an important real world hands-on piece of knowledge. The idea of having to neutralize hides soaked in an alkaline solution (lime) by adding vinegar (acid) so that the hide doesn’t get ruined, became a part of the chemistry learning. Looking at pH levels of different solutions we made and the amount of lime added to solution, were also pieces of learning for me and the kids.
Taking Action: We bit off more than we could chew, so to speak. Trying to process 8 mule deer hides and half a moose hide. The de-fleshing process took two weeks and kids were starting to buy-out a bit. It is hard work–which relates to the F.P.P.O.L. tenet that “Learning takes patience and time” and that “Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational (focused on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place)”. We worked through much of the hides and decided to just stretch and make rawhide out of four of the hides instead of brain tanning them. The concept of area still applied not with spreading brains but with how much area of the hide can we get from stretching it out on a frame? The ones where we used the brain tanning process, we did with egg, pork, fat and water. The tan took a bit, but not as much as using real brains which are rich in lectins that break down the hide. The kids loved the rough stretching and breaking the membrane part and we used a steel cable between two trees to work the hide, as well as kids pulling it in all directions. We didn’t smoke the hides as we ran out of time and we were so beat from working every day for a month. It was still a very memorable experience and all will never forget it!
Checking: Kids like to learn with their hearts and hands, then their minds, so I believe they now really comprehend acids and bases and how they neutralize each other. They had to problem solve area and how much final hide we would have in cm2, so that was real world and applicable to their lives. The students’ ideas of area were all baselined from 2D paper assessments, so when we worked in 3D with an irregular shape and applied square cm to it we had to fit half and quarter cm’s into the mix to get full coverage of the real area of a hide. When we chatted again about their feelings regarding the four questions, they were much more enthusiastic about their numeracy and science learning, and how it could be applied in their future learning.
Picture description: Horse Lake elementary photos of students and Canim Lake knowledge keeper, Adrian Archie, de-fleshing and stretching on frames and using ulu’s on fleshing poles.
Reflections/Advice: I learned to only do a few hides at a time and have students not working on hides do another activity beside the group, like soapstone carving, while others are working. It gives kids a break from the work and you don’t have the stress of having to do 9 hides and keep them from spoiling and making sure they are all at the right stages, especially when it came to weekends and having to stop the process until Monday. Hides kept well in the cold spring temperatures, but if it was warmer we would have had some spoil – we were lucky. Also, we started out with gloves and wearing garbage bags to protect our clothing but we ended up with bare hands and not bothered by the smell or flesh by the end; it was very natural. As for learning, it is always special to see hands-on experiential project-based learning come to life with an Indigenous lens. I feel very privileged to be a part of these types of projects. After we smudged, an eagle flew over our heads. I’ve never seen an eagle fly over our school before in the twelve years I’ve been at that school. Next, we will continue to offer this type of pedagogy to our learners.