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This video segment examines the issue of climate change from the perspective of Native Americans. The video segment was adapted from a student video produced at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas.

Learn more about Teaching Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness»


Notes From Our Reviewers The CLEAN collection is hand-picked and rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and classroom effectiveness. Read what our review team had to say about this resource below or learn more about how CLEAN reviews teaching materials
Teaching Tips | Science | Pedagogy | Technical Details

Teaching Tips

  • Students could locate the setting of this video and investigate, using other resources such as drought maps and satellite images, changes in the area over the time span that these elders describe.

About the Content

  • Paiute elders describe the changes they have observed in their surroundings, especially those related to water, and the effects of these changes on their way of life.
  • Comments from expert scientist:
    Scientific strengths:
    - Background essay gives current statistics about the indigenous population in the world and in the United States
    - Elders explain the differences they have observed in fish, rain and heat over the years
    - This resource doesn't include a whole lot of hardy scientific material (facts, data, etc.) but would be a good introduction to climate change affects; the stats of fish decline, rain decline and temperature changes.

About the Pedagogy

  • Video portrays the reflections of two Walker River (Nevada) Paiute Elders who describe the river and surrounding mountains as they were in their childhood and how much they have changed since then, primarily in terms of availability of water and food.
  • Background essay about indigenous knowledge and discussion questions provided.

Technical Details/Ease of Use

  • Excellent quality.

Related URLs These related sites were noted by our reviewers but have not been reviewed by CLEAN

This video is a Haskell Indian Nations University production for NASA's "Where Words Touch The Earth." This video is part of the "Where Words Touch the Earth" Collection on PBS Learning Media https://mpbn.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/nasawords/.
Entered the Collection: June 2018 Last Reviewed: April 2017

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