NCCIE Lesson Plans

These lesson plans relate to art and performance in different ways. Many lesson plans introduce students to visual arts such as weaving, photography, and textures in the environment and others include performing arts such as music and language arts. Lessons also include teachings offered by Elders related to topics of the arts, as well as culturally responsive lessons to contemporary subjects such as coding.

These lesson plans relate to climate change in different ways. Connections can be made between how climate change has impacted trees, water resources, caribou, and the environment where you live.  Elders can be included in these lessons to share their observations and experiences how their lives and ways of being on-the-land have changed due to climate impacts.

These lesson plans relate to colonialism which is the forced removal, genocide and assimilation of Indigenous people. These lessons include the history of colonialism and residential schools including first-person accounts by residential school survivors, a toolkit for newcomers to understand the ongoing impacts and culturally relevant lessons that build on the long tradition of resistance to colonialism.

These lesson plans relate to Indigenous culture including remembering ancestors, understanding treaties, archeology, learning from the land, exploring the past, and understanding climate change. Many lessons in this category explore culture through traditional land-based practices (such as hunting, gathering medicines, weaving, drumming, shelter building, tree tapping, etc.), storytelling, and the arts.

Stories in this category are focused on Early Childhood Education and promote the development of cultural knowledge and language for young children, from birth to six years old and their families and caregivers, in a safe, supportive setting. Programs include Head Start, early years and family literacy, licensed child care, family resource, prenatal, Early On, and early years outreach. The goals of these programs include bonding, culture and language development, learning traditional crafts, cultural development, confidence, walking proudly in two words as they prepare to enter kindergarten, health, nutrition, and adapted programs through an Indigenous lens, focused on teaching parents and caregivers to use literacy as a way to connect with their children. Additional goals include speech and language support, teaching a foundational knowledge of Indigenous ways of knowing and being to Indigenous children and families, and outreach to schools and community partners.

These lessons relate to environmental knowledge and include lessons on making tea, understanding consent with the land when harvesting plants, and making connections between how climate change has impacted trees, water resources, caribou, and the environment. These lessons also include Elders stories about learning on the land and experiential learning opportunities.

These lesson plans relate to food and food security including the rights of water, using maple syrup, and Elder’s experiences of hunting and harvesting other traditional foods and plants.

These lesson plans relate to governance including understanding the past and learning about resistance to colonialism through stories of survival by residential school survivors in order to make connections between people, place, environment, culture and government.

These lesson plans relate to harvesting foods and medicines including medicine walks, using maple syrup, making tea, and understanding consent with the land when harvesting plants for medicine.

These lesson plans relate to healing through stories of residential school survivors, resistance, medicine walks, and talking circles in order to understand truth and move into reconciliation and resurgence.

These lesson plans relate to history of the land and Indigenous people including remembering ancestors, understanding treaties, archeology, learning from the land, food gathering, exploring the past, and understanding climate change. Many lessons in this category blend social and environmental issues and help explain how they intersect with each other through resistance and how they shape the future through storytelling and explorations through the arts.

The lesson plans in this category relate to leadership in education including treaty responsibilities, resistance, revitalization, curriculum, assessment and reconciliation.

These lesson plans mainly relate to learning Indigenous languages and exploring language, stories, songs naming traditions and culture through traditional practices (such as hunting, gathering medicines, weaving, drumming, shelter building, tree tapping, etc.). Some of these lessons will require a language speaker and others can be used by English speaking educators.

These lesson plans relate to law and justice through understanding the history of colonialism and considering the perspectives of residential school survivors in order to consider ways of healing and moving toward reconciliation.

These lesson plans relate to developing life skills, particularly as Indigenous students transition from secondary school to their future education, career and life goals. These lessons seek to understand the past and find culturally responsive frameworks through which to support Indigenous students.

These lesson plans relate to literacy including lessons about language acquisition, financial literacy, coding, culturally responsive video gaming, and the history of colonization.

These lessons relate to medicines, and include traditional medicine walks, making tea, maple syrup, and understanding consent with the land when harvesting plants for medicine.

The lesson plans in this category relate to professional development, including hearing first-person accounts of the experience of residential schools in order to better understand treaty responsibilities, resistance, revitalization, curriculum, assessment and reconciliation. They include a case study for integrating Indigenous knowledge into the curriculum, and lessons on financial literacy.

These lesson plans relate to science in different ways. Lessons include topics such as the seasons, water, teachings of the caribou, maple syrup harvesting, hunting and astronomy in order to show the connections between traditional practices and western science, including the impact of climate change on Indigenous people and the natural world. Lessons include math and measurement as well as scientific processes related to traditional practices.

These lesson plans focus on preparing teachers to integrate Indigenous knowledge into their lessons including wholism, localized cultural inclusion, intergenerational learning, ethics and deepening connections between families, Elders, Knowledge Keepers and community. These lessons discuss best practices and first-person accounts of the experience of residential schools in order to better understand treaty responsibilities, resistance, revitalization, curriculum, assessment and reconciliation.

These lesson plans relate to understanding treaties, which includes hearing and learning from the perspectives of residential school survivors, understanding resistance movements against colonialism and getting to know the history of the land and the negotiation processes that led to the creation of treaties.

These lesson plans relate to health and wellness through life transitions and by hearing first-person accounts of the impacts of colonization. These lessons seek to integrate land-based, holistic approaches and culturally responsive frameworks and curricula to support Indigenous students using stories and other cultural practices.

These lesson plans relate to understanding community through art, technology, writing, and hands-on learning, to deepen connections between people, place, environment, culture, and government to build a strong sense of identity.

These lesson plans are mostly through the perspective of Indigenous Elders who share first-person accounts of their experience with the ongoing impacts of colonialism including attending residential schools, the barriers they have faced, and how they can reclaim culture through sharing their knowledge with the next generations through storytelling and connecting their knowledge to curriculum.

These lesson plans relate to Indigenous ways of knowing and being through building relationships to the natural world and understanding the past in order to foster healing and resiliency. Some lessons demonstrate how Indigenous knowledge can support a deeper understanding of the land and the changes that are a result of climate change. Others are focused on remembering ancestors, understanding treaties and exploring culture through traditional land-based practices (such as hunting, gathering medicines, weaving, drumming, shelter building, tree tapping, etc.).

These lesson plans relate to learning land-based learning including teachings about caribou, maple syrup, medicines, shelter, and understanding climate change. Lessons in this category explore past practices and consider contemporary ways of engaging in land-based learning through Elders stories and teachings and understanding of history and resistance to colonization.

These lesson plans relate to mathematics through lessons about maple syrup to teach measurement, ratios, counting and observation.

These lesson plans relate to music, including understanding the purpose and meaning behind songs and how music can build a strong cultural identity and promote language acquisition.

The lesson plans in this category are related to organizational planning for best practices in Indigenous education and include a case study on best practices in Indigenous education as schools consider how to integrate Indigenous knowledge into their curriculum and organizational culture overall.

These lessons include understanding truth in order to realize reconciliation, including first-person accounts of the experience of residential schools, identity, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as well as the ongoing healing process that is happening by Indigenous people and between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in order to find best practices in reconciliation in education.

These lesson plans relate to sharing youth voices and perspectives through digital storytelling and photo journalism that explores connections between people, place, environment, culture, and government. These lessons also include a series to support Indigenous students in their transition from secondary school to their future education, career and life goals, as they deepen their understanding of how history is connected to identity.