GLIFWC and Wild Rice
Lesson #: 16
Grade: 4th
Subject Area: Social Studies
Context
Materials
Introduction/Investment
When we read the stories about the Ojibwe, the Creator told the Ojibwe to stop where “Food Grows on Water.” Does anyone know food that grows on water?
Show this video and discuss what this means and what they saw in this video. Very cool video with a person telling of the story and connecting wild rice is to the people of the Ojibwe.
Content
GLIFWC and Wild rice content is very important to the ideas that students need:
Whole-Class Activity
After the students have discovered the importance of the rice paddies and GLIFWC, give them a first hand experience with the GLIFWC newspaper, Mazina’igan.
With this newspaper, have the small groups read the paper and pick something out of it that is important. Tell the class that they have 15 minutes to read the headlines and pick out the most interesting story and then report back to the class what they read about and why it is important to the rice paddies or GLIFWC.
Mazina’igan is also a great resource for finding kid-friendly information especially about how the Ojibwe harvest rice.
After the 15 minutes, have the students come back and share out to the group. Offer the students the criteria that they will need to tell the class:
Practice
As practice, which will be homework, give each student a copy of supplemental parts of the Mazina’igan that deal with ricing.
The practice for this will be for the students to read the pamphlet and write what they learned that they didn’t know in class and why it was interesting to them.
Assessment
Check based on participation and based on the responses from the homework.
Exit Slip to add to the KWL chart.
Grade: 4th
Subject Area: Social Studies
Context
Materials
- Exit Slip
- Projector to show videos
Introduction/Investment
When we read the stories about the Ojibwe, the Creator told the Ojibwe to stop where “Food Grows on Water.” Does anyone know food that grows on water?
Show this video and discuss what this means and what they saw in this video. Very cool video with a person telling of the story and connecting wild rice is to the people of the Ojibwe.
Content
GLIFWC and Wild rice content is very important to the ideas that students need:
- GLIFWC stands for Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Committee
- It is meant to serve as a unifying body to assist all the different bands in resupplying the waterways and also protecting the rice beds.
- The harvesting of rice is very sacred to the Ojibwe (Make connection to the Menominee Nation and their forestry)
- The technique is crucial to the survival of the rice paddies.
- The back person pushes the canoe along the paddies while the person in the front serves as the ‘winnower’ who knocks the rice off
- In the process of winnowing, the paddies are being reseeded and there is no need to manually go out and seed
- Due to the importance of rice and fish to the Ojibwe, GLIFWC takes on a huge aspect of the maintaining of the culture around fishing and rice.
Whole-Class Activity
After the students have discovered the importance of the rice paddies and GLIFWC, give them a first hand experience with the GLIFWC newspaper, Mazina’igan.
With this newspaper, have the small groups read the paper and pick something out of it that is important. Tell the class that they have 15 minutes to read the headlines and pick out the most interesting story and then report back to the class what they read about and why it is important to the rice paddies or GLIFWC.
Mazina’igan is also a great resource for finding kid-friendly information especially about how the Ojibwe harvest rice.
After the 15 minutes, have the students come back and share out to the group. Offer the students the criteria that they will need to tell the class:
- Title of the article
- Theme of the article
- Interesting fact
- Question you still have.
Practice
As practice, which will be homework, give each student a copy of supplemental parts of the Mazina’igan that deal with ricing.
The practice for this will be for the students to read the pamphlet and write what they learned that they didn’t know in class and why it was interesting to them.
Assessment
Check based on participation and based on the responses from the homework.
Exit Slip to add to the KWL chart.
