Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations
This professional learning community will center around supporting Minnesota educators as they work to integrate Indigenous science into their classrooms. It'll be structured as a series of online learning opportunities that feature a guest speaker and time to work with colleagues on curriculum development.
By participating in this learning community, educators should expect to increase their familiarity with Indigenous science concepts and build confidence in bringing Indigenous science into their classrooms. Educators are asked to attend one session in each topic area. A stipend of $50 per professional learning community will be provided to attendees.
Reach out to Seth Thompson at sthompson@freshwater.org with questions.
Place
It has been said that we are “place-lings” before we are human beings or earth-lings. It has also been suggested that the scale of a global consciousness is too broad a scale of care, given the place-based circumstances of human evolution. To what extent does a deeper connection with our bioregions reinvigorate a sense of kinship with the place-based beings, systems, and communities that mutually shape one another?
- Tuesday, November 11th 4:30-6:30 PM
- Thursday, November 13th 4:30-6:30 PM
- Monday, November 17th 4:30-6:30 PM
- Wednesday, November 19th 4:30-6:30 PM
Partners
How do cultural traditions, narratives, and mythologies shape the ways in which we relate to other beings as kin (or not)? How do these relations between and among different species foster a sense of responsibility and belonging?
- Monday, December 1st 4:30 - 6:00 PM
- Wednesday, December 3rd 4:30 - 6:00 PM
- Tuesday, December 9th 4:30 - 6:00 PM
- Thursday, December 11th 4:30 - 6:00 PM
Persons
Kinship spans the cosmos, but it is perhaps most life-changing when experienced directly and personally. What experiences of yours expanded your understanding of being human in relation to other-than-human beings? How can we respectfully engage a world full of human and nonhuman persons?
Registration coming soon.
Practice
From the perspective of kinship as a recognition of nonhuman personhood, of kincentric ethics, and Kinship revolutionized into kinning, how are we to live? What are the practical, every day, and lifelong ways we become kin?
Registration coming soon.
Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). The Trust Fund is a permanent fund constitutionally established by the citizens of Minnesota to assist in the protection, conservation, preservation, and enhancement of the state’s air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources.
This work is supported by a University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment Impact Goal grant, 2023-2026, titled “Delivering Culturally Integrated Sustainability Education Through Supported Teacher Professional Development.,” under Grant No. IG 72.