Indigenous Ingenuity

Indigenous Ingenuity: A Celebration of Traditional North American Knowledge, by Deidre Havrelock and Edward Kay, is a nonfiction book that focuses on the technological knowledge and achievements of Indigenous people from Turtle Island with a focus on precontact societies. The book is divided into various topics, such as transportation, medicine, structures, food, communication and more. It also offers activities for kids to further explore the different topics.

While this book would be a good addition to many different content areas, it has particular potential for transforming the science classroom and for project based learning. For example, the sections that focus on housing or transportation in different Indigenous societies could be used to support students' understanding of structures. Students could investigate how Indigenous groups from different areas developed innovative building techniques that were ideally suited to their ways of life, their environments, and the available resources. It would be interesting to see what kinds of design projects could spring from this technological knowledge.

The authors also focus on Traditional Ecological Knowledge, which involves environmental knowledge developed and refined through generations of observations and through sustained relationships with the land. An example in the book focuses on the traditional ecological practice of cultural burning, where natural areas are burned on purpose. This longstanding practice prevented out of control forest fires and encouraged biodiversity. While settler societies initially stopped this traditional practice, there is now better understanding and recognition of its importance. For instance, Parks Canada now regularly engages in prescribed burns and is working with Indigenous communities to restore Indigenous-led cultural burning practices. Traditional ecological knowledge is a topic that should be better integrated into the classroom in order to encourage better understanding of our local environments and greater connection to the land. This book, paired with the young adult version of Braiding Sweetgrass, can offer students a first step into better understanding it.