Module 4 Weblog 3 (A. Davidson)

Sky Stories: A First Nations Journey Teacher’s Resources

Description & Relevancy

This educational opportunity and resource looks excellent. I wonder if any of you who teach and live on the West Coast have had a chance to view this at the HR MacMillan Space Centre? Sky Stories is the work of Margaret Grenier who has both Gitxsan and Cree ancestry, and holds a Masters Degree in Education. The focus of this multi-media presentation is to offer several  unique perspectives of the night sky by way of indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing. This excerpt from the teacher’s research package offers a more articulate description of what students will potentially learn through this experience:

Sky Stories is a unique planetarium experience that introduces students to Aboriginal perspectives of the night sky and diverse ways of knowing.  It describes the understandings of the night sky from three First Nations’ oral histories in British Columbia and the Yukon; the Wsanec moon calendar, the Gitksan origin story and Tlingit aurora borealis stories. Grandmother, Grandfather and Raven guide the audience through the journey as the audience travels from story to story, each in its own setting. The relationship between the Elders and the youth, the female roles and the male counterparts frame and balance the overall piece. This balance between young and old, male and female is reflective of the circular and non-hierarchical way of knowing where even time is non-linear but part of a continuum.

note: Andy Everson: created the Sky Stories logo. Retrieved November 20, 2009 from Sky Stories Teacher Resource package. www.hrmacmillanspacecentre.com

Links:

Quick View

http://www.hrmacmillanspacecentre.com/planetarium_details_skystories.htm