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instructional resource

Pacific Northwest History and Cultures: Why Do the Foods We Eat Matter?

This online lesson provides perspectives from Native American community members, images, objects, and other sources to help students and teachers understand the important connections between foods and cultures for Native People of the Pacific Northwest. Discover how Native Nations of the Pacific Northwest take action to protect and sustain salmon, water, and homelands.

Resource Information

grades   9 10 11 12
nations
Coast Salish, Colville Confederated Tribes, Lummi, Makah, Muckleshoot, Nisqually, Puyallup, Quileute, Skokomish, Yakama
subjects
English Language Arts, Environmental Science, Geography, Government and Civics, History, Social Studies
regions
Northwest Coast, North America
keywords
Pacific Northwest, salmon, usual and accustomed, Washington state, fisheries, treaty rights, salmon runs, dams, pollution, salmon habitat, environment, sustainability, culture, spawning grounds, comanagement, food sovereignty
Essential Understandings More Close

1: American Indian Cultures
Key Concept: There is no single American Indian culture or language.
Key Concept: For millennia, American Indians have shaped and been shaped by their culture and environment. Elders in each generation teach the next generation their values, traditions, and beliefs through their own tribal languages, social practices, arts, music, ceremonies, and customs.
Key Concept: Interactions with Europeans and Americans brought accelerated and often devastating changes to American Indian cultures.
Key Concept: Native people continue to fight to maintain the integrity and viability of indigenous societies. American Indian history is one of cultural persistence, creative adaptation, renewal, and resilience.

2: Time, Continuity, and Change
Key Concept: European contact resulted in devastating loss of life, disruption of tradition, and enormous loss of lands for American Indians.
Key Concept: Hearing and understanding American Indian history from Indian perspectives provides an important point of view to the discussion of history and cultures in the Americas. Indian perspectives expand the social, political, and economic dialogue.

3: People, Places, and Environments
Key Concept: The story of American Indians in the Western Hemisphere is intricately intertwined with places and environments. Native knowledge systems resulted from long-term occupation of tribal homelands, and observation and interaction with places. American Indians understood and valued the relationship between local environments and cultural traditions, and recognized that human beings are part of the environment.
Key Concept: Long before their contact with Europeans, indigenous people populated the Americas and were successful stewards and managers of the land.

4: Individual Development and Identity
Key Concept: For American Indians, identity development takes place in a cultural context, and the process differs from one American Indian culture to another. American Indian identity is shaped by the family, peers, social norms, and institutions inside and outside a community or culture.
Key Concept: In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, many American Indian communities have sought to revitalize and reclaim their languages and cultures.

7: Production, Distribution, and Consumption
Key Concept: For thousands of years, American Indians developed and operated vast trade networks throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Key Concept: American Indians traded, exchanged, gifted, and negotiated the purchase of goods, foods, technologies, domestic animals, ideas, and cultural practices with one another.
Key Concept: Today, American Indians are involved in a variety of economic enterprises, set economic policies for their nations, and own and manage natural resources that affect the production, distribution and the consumption of goods and services throughout much of the United States.

8: Science, Technology, and Society
Key Concept: American Indian knowledge can inform the ongoing search for new solutions to contemporary issues.
Key Concept: American Indian knowledge reflects a relationship developed over millennia with the living earth based on keen observation, experimentation, and practice.
Key Concept: American Indian knowledge is closely tied to languages, cultural values, and practices. It is founded on the recognition of the relationships between humans and the world around them.


LEARN MORE ABOUT ESSENTIAL UNDERSTANDINGS →

Academic Standards More Close

College, Career, & Civic Life–C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards

D1.5.9-12
Determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in answering compelling and supporting questions, taking into consideration multiple points of view represented in the sources, the types of sources available, and the potential uses of the sources.

D4.1.9-12
Construct arguments using precise and knowledgeable claims, with evidence from multiple sources, while acknowledging counterclaims and evidentiary weaknesses.

D2.Geo.6.9-12
Evaluate the impact of human settlement activities on the environmental and cultural characteristics of specific places and regions.

D2.Geo.4.9-12
Analyze relationships and interactions within and between human and physical systems to explain reciprocal influences that occur among them.

D2.His.13.9-12
Critique the appropriateness of the historical sources used in a secondary interpretation.

D4.1.9-12
Construct arguments using precise and knowledgeable claims, with evidence from multiple sources, while acknowledging counterclaims and evidentiary weaknesses.

D2.Civ.5.9-12
Evaluate citizens' and institutions' effectiveness in addressing social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national, and/or international level.

D4.7.9-12
Assess options for individual and collective action to address local, regional, and global problems by engaging in self-reflection, strategy identification, and complex causal reasoning.

D4.6.9-12
Use disciplinary and interdisciplinary lenses to understand the characteristics and causes of local, regional, and global problems; instances of such problems in multiple contexts; and challenges and opportunities faced by those trying to address these problems over time and place.


Common Core State Standards

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.1
Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

9-10 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.1
Write [construct] arguments focused on discipline-specific content.

11-12 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.1
Write [construct] arguments focused on discipline-specific content.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

9-10 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.1
Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

11-12 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.1
Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.9
Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.8
Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism

9-10 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.8
Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

9-10 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.9
Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

11-12 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.8
Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the specific task, purpose, and audience; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance on any one source and following a standard format for citation.

11-12 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.9
Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.1
Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

9-10 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.1
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.

9-10 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.1.A
Introduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that establishes clear relationships among the claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.

11-12 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.1.A
Introduce precise, knowledgeable claim(s), establish the significance of the claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that logically sequences the claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.

11-12 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2
Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.8
Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

9-10 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.2
Determine the central ideasor information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.

9-10 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.8
Assess the extent to which the reasoning and evidence in a text support the author's claims.

11-12 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2
Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.

11-12 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.8
Evaluate an author's premises, claims, and evidence by corroborating or challenging them with other information.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.9
Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

9-10 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.9
Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.

11-12 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.9
Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

9-10 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.2
Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/experiments, or technical processes.

11-12 Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.2
Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/experiments, or technical processes.