ClassX Video Lessons Bring Native American Perspectives Into Your Lessons With The National Museum of the American Indian
Hello everyone! Today, we’re excited to share a fantastic resource that can help you learn more about Native American cultures. It’s called the National Museum of the American Indian, and you can explore it online. This museum is part of the Smithsonian Institution, and it offers a lot of interesting information about Native peoples from North and South America.
The museum has two physical locations in Washington, D.C., and New York, but you can also visit it virtually. The website features online exhibitions that are both engaging and educational. These exhibitions allow you to learn about different topics independently, making them a great resource for students.
While the museum’s resources are suitable for various grade levels, they are particularly useful for students in middle and high school. However, with a bit of creativity, teachers can adapt these materials for younger students too.
One of the exciting features of the website is the collection search. You can look for objects and artifacts by entering search terms and using filters like people, culture, region, and object type. This is a great way to find illustrations for your lessons or explore examples that fit what you’re learning in class.
For a more focused educational experience, check out the “Native Knowledge 360” section under the education tab. This area is packed with resources designed specifically for classroom use. It includes digital materials, lessons, activities, and posters that cover a wide range of topics.
The museum offers virtual field trips that are perfect for younger audiences. These trips often include arts and crafts and are tailored to different grade levels. Be sure to sign up early, as spots can fill up quickly. Additionally, there are webinars for both students and teachers, featuring discussions with members of Native tribes and nations.
The resources available through Native Knowledge 360 allow you to explore Native cultures in depth. You can filter lessons by nation, region, and grade level. There’s even a special resource called “Rethinking Thanksgiving,” which provides a Native perspective on the holiday.
To make your lessons even more relevant, you can use the website nativedashland.ca to find information about the Native nations or tribes in your area. This can help you connect the resources to your specific region and start meaningful conversations about the history of the land you live on.
The National Museum of the American Indian is a wonderful tool for bringing Native American perspectives into your lessons. Whether you’re exploring artifacts, participating in virtual field trips, or learning about Native cultures, there’s something for everyone. So, dive in and discover the rich history and traditions of Native peoples!
Explore the National Museum of the American Indian’s online exhibitions. Your task is to find specific artifacts or pieces of information about a particular Native American culture. Create a list of clues or questions, and see how many you can answer by navigating the virtual exhibits.
Using the “Native Knowledge 360” resources, choose a Native American tribe or nation to research. Design a poster that highlights key aspects of their culture, such as traditional clothing, food, and customs. Share your poster with the class to educate others about the tribe you studied.
Use the collection search feature on the museum’s website to find an artifact that interests you. Research its history and significance, then prepare a short presentation to share your findings with the class. Explain why you chose this artifact and what it tells us about the culture it represents.
Sign up for one of the museum’s virtual field trips. During the trip, take notes on what you learn about Native American arts and crafts. Afterward, create your own piece of art inspired by what you saw, and write a brief reflection on the experience.
Visit nativedashland.ca to find information about Native tribes in your area. Choose one tribe to research in depth. Create a report or presentation that includes their history, current status, and contributions to the community. Share your findings with the class to foster a deeper understanding of local Native cultures.
Here’s a sanitized version of the YouTube transcript:
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Hello everyone! It’s Chrissy and Tanner back again, just like we are every single Tuesday. We are here coming to you from Common Sense Education. Please come and check us out for all of our amazing resources that can help you get to winter break.
Now, today Tanner is going to tell us about a really cool tool that you might want to explore with your students. Tanner, what is that?
Yeah, today we’re going to be talking about the National Museum of the American Indian, which you can visit at their website. This is part of the Smithsonian Institution, and we recently published a review of this website. The first thing that might stick out is that we gave this a three-star rating. Now, that is still a good rating, and it is a tool that we would recommend. We absolutely think anyone who wants to teach about Native peoples in the Americas—whether North America, South America, or elsewhere—should check this out.
The problem is, as a museum institution and a site dedicated to supporting the museum, it’s not necessarily the greatest experience for classrooms. I think they’ve got a way to go, but it’s still adaptable. So let’s take a look, and I can point out the extraordinary things about it, as well as some drawbacks for teachers.
Like any museum website, this museum has two locations in D.C. and New York. You can explore the exhibitions, and they do have online exhibitions you might want to check out. These tend to be pretty good, and they all have custom websites that accompany them, which can provide good independent learning experiences for students to dig into different topics. I think the design of them is really engaging and interesting.
However, while they have resources that span all grades, our reviewer felt strongly that this site is best suited for grades 7 through 12. You can adapt some of these resources for younger students, but as they are, they really target this grade level and understanding.
There are online exhibitions that are definitely worth checking out and could serve as independent experiences. There’s also a collection search for objects and artifacts in the museum’s collection, which are really cool. One thing that kind of bothers me is that you have to first enter a search term to then access the filters, but the filters are actually pretty good. You can filter by people, culture, region, and object type, which offers excellent illustrations for your lessons or units. You’ll probably be able to find artifacts that you can include in a slideshow or let students explore to find examples that fit lessons you might be teaching.
They also have archival documents and research materials for upper grades if you want to do some primary research. But this is all preamble to what is the true educational experience here. If you go to the education tab on the website, I would recommend clicking into Native Knowledge 360. That will get you to all the resources they’ve designed specifically for classroom educational purposes, whereas the other resources are more about highlighting what’s going on in the museum.
They have a nice site with a bunch of different things. I’ll point out that they do have professional development webinars for teachers, which are all free. You can register for them, and they handle them through Zoom. They also have student programs, including student webinars. These tend to be for an older audience and work best for high school students. They often feature discussions on topics with members of tribes and nations sharing their experiences and perspectives, which is really nice, though they can be quite complex.
However, they do have virtual field trips that fit much better with younger audiences. You can sign up for these, and they’ve tuned them to different grade levels. We think these match well with the grade levels and often feature arts and crafts, which is great. I did notice that if you go to the registration, many of them are already full, so you want to plan early for these live hosted events.
These virtual field trips seem really cool and cover a lot of interesting topics. For example, there’s one about math and Mayan culture that could be really interesting, and there are others that might fit with your region.
Under the lessons and resources section, Native Knowledge 360 has a great database of digital materials, lessons, activities, and posters. The standout feature here is the filters. You can filter by nation, region, and grade level. There are also resources for Thanksgiving, which is important to address from a Native perspective. One resource, “Rethinking Thanksgiving,” is particularly impressive and valuable for bringing in Native perspectives on the holiday.
They also have an essential understanding set of filters that breaks down Native culture into topics like time, continuity, and change, allowing you to explore what makes up different Native cultures and the core concepts involved in the lessons.
These resources are great, but they will require some adaptation. One other thing I wanted to point out is that you can search by region or nation. A useful site is nativedashland.ca, where you can find the nations or tribes in your area. This can help you connect resources with your specific region, which would make for a really cool lesson.
That alone is a great conversation starter to show students the people who inhabited the lands we are on currently. It’s a great starting point for land acknowledgments in your class.
We also have a new article up on the site with holiday-related resources from different backgrounds, and you included this resource in that article.
Yes, if you’re looking for inclusive winter holiday resources, it might be a good thing to check out.
Thank you very much, Tanner! As always, we are here for you. We’ll be back again next Tuesday, so come check us out at Common Sense Education to see all the things we have to offer. You’re doing great! Thanks for watching!
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This version removes any informal language, filler words, and maintains a professional tone while preserving the main ideas and content.
Native American – A member of any of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. – In our social studies class, we learned about the rich traditions and history of Native American tribes.
Museum – A building or institution dedicated to preserving and exhibiting objects of historical, cultural, or artistic value. – Our class visited the local museum to see the artifacts from ancient civilizations.
Education – The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university. – Education is important for understanding the world and making informed decisions.
Resources – Materials, money, staff, and other assets that can be used to support and enhance learning and development. – The teacher provided us with online resources to help us with our history project.
Cultures – The social behavior, norms, and practices found in human societies. – We studied different cultures to understand how people live and interact around the world.
Artifacts – Objects made by humans, typically of historical or cultural interest. – The museum displayed artifacts from ancient Egypt, including pottery and jewelry.
Lessons – Units of instruction or learning experiences in a particular subject. – Our history lessons this week focused on the American Revolution.
Virtual – Existing or occurring on computers or on the internet. – Due to the pandemic, our class took a virtual tour of the Smithsonian Museum.
Tribes – Social groups consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties. – We learned about the different tribes that lived in North America before European settlers arrived.
History – The study of past events, particularly in human affairs. – Understanding history helps us learn from past mistakes and successes.
