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Curriculum Resources for the Alaskan Environment
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Subject Areas: social
science, history
Timeline: at least one
quarter
Grade Levels:
6-12
Purpose: to provide
students with an Idea of how previous generations
lived; to provide communication between students
and eiders; to give students practice at working as
a group
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J. Bacon
Building
Traditional
Dwellings
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Activities
- It is vital that the class or
group locate a person (or persons) in the community who
remembers how to construct a traditional dwelling. If you
are unsuccessful in this, it is perhaps best to find
another project rather than proceed
unassisted.
- Ideally your "experts" would
instruct the students, rather than letting them watch.
Actual work could be two or three days per week, with the
remaining days used for planning and organization. A
flexible schedule will allow students to work outside
when the weather is best, and remain inside when it is
worst.
- When completed, the class could
actually spend some time living in the dwelling and could
give tours to other students, explaining to them what
they have learned.
Resources
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Variations
- If you are unable to find any
community members interested in actually building a
traditional dwelling, you may be able to get someone to
spend time telling your class what life in such a
dwelling entailed, and build a study unit around that.
This could be done at any time of year. Also, it is
important to let student discover the advantages
traditional dwellings had over frame construction
(ease of construction, conservation of energy,
availability of materials).
- In an Eskimo (Yupik) community,
students might consider building a Kasigi, or
traditional men's house. When completed, a Kasigi
could have many uses: storytelling, dancing, kayak
building, to name a few.
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