Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Gestures of Gratitude”

After reading Kimmerer’s ideas about gratitude in Braiding Sweetgrass, students demonstrate their understanding by creating a presentation applying Kimmerer’s ideas to a specific natural resource.

Choose a natural resource that is central to your own way of life: water, fossil fuels, rare earth elements, etc. Conduct research and take notes about the many uses to which humans put this resource and what the implications would be should this resource become scarce or disappear. Then, create a presentation that shows how Kimmerer’s ideas about gratitude might be applied to people’s use of this resource. What would it look like if we were all genuinely mindful of what a gift this resource is? How might our behavior change?

Research and Reflect

• Choose a natural resource to focus on, and research the uses of this resource and what it contributes to people’s comfort, safety, entertainment, and so on.
• Make a list of the ways human life would change if this resource became scarce or disappeared.
• Review the points made in Braiding Sweetgrass and make a list of Kimmerer’s ideas about how people can show gratitude for nature’s gifts.
• Think about how to apply Kimmerer’s ideas to the natural resource you are focusing on. Make a list of the ways people might show gratitude by changing their behavior and thinking.

Create Your Presentation

• Create a presentation that uses words and images to share.

o Background information about your resource

o The ideas from Kimmerer’s book that are relevant to showing gratitude

o Your own ideas about how Kimmerer’s ideas can be applied to the resource you are focusing on

• Cite sources of all borrowed images, words, and ideas in a format appropriate to a visual presentation.

Teaching Suggestion: You can reduce the class time required for this activity by allowing students to work with a partner or in small groups. You can make the assignment more challenging by asking students to also include information about what kinds of environmental and educational programs already exist around their chosen resource—they can even evaluate the effectiveness of these programs and comment on how they relate to Kimmerer’s ideas. If your students are motivated by competition, consider having students post their presentations on a class website and then allowing students to vote for the most persuasive and practical list of suggestions about how to apply Kimmerer’s ideas.

Differentiation Suggestion: Because the activity has many steps, students with attentional and executive function issues may benefit from being presented with one step at a time, with a defined amount of time to accomplish each one. Students who struggle with emotional issues such as anxiety may benefit from being assigned a natural resource rather than having to choose for themselves. Those who are visually impaired might work with a partner or small group or write an essay to replace the presentation.