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By colson, March 11, 2012 3:38 pm

March camp was spent preparing to tell the story of this year’s study of manoomin. LacCore and manoomin worked together to complete three poster which will be presented mid-March in Montana at the Geo-Science Alliance as well as in april to the Fond du Lac Reservation leaders. Other activities included building working 3D constructions made out of 2D materials and wind power studies.

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By colson, February 5, 2012 1:27 am

Students worked with a number of “reactants” which when put together created a ”product”. Our reactant options included cabbage juice, citric acid, calciun chloride (CaCl2), baking soda or water. Everyone got to pick what they wanted to mix together. Mixtures could use only two reactants up to all five.  Students worked in groups of two – one gidaa student with one college student. Groups were able to complete up to ten experiemnts. It was really fun.

Baking soda and cabbage juice was the most curious combination for Chelsey. “It turned green! (and smelled bad)”. She added CaCl2 to the mixture and it created massive foam and turned from green to pink right away.

Gye put baking soda, citric acid and CaCl2 together and it made a white foam that got thicker over time. It had chunky white spots with cold and warm in different parts. It was really fun.

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By colson, February 5, 2012 1:26 am

Geo Cash Team Winners - The Wolves

Students participated in geo cashing! Teachers prepared a course in the woods outside at the Cloquet Forestry using GPS coordinates. Students had to decifer the ojibwe math problem to find the correct cordinates to ultimatly find the hidden prize.

James liked the running around with Patrick. James Paunu enjoyed the challenge of using the GPS itself. Even though it was difficult, being out in the winter night sky was great. Bob was firing the clay pots in the fire (curing with olive oil) in hopes of getting them ready to cook wild rice in them next camp.
Ojibwe Numbers

11-19 Examples:
16 = ashi  ingodwaaswi                        16 = and (ten)  six

15 = ashi  naanan                                  15 = and (ten)  five

Numbers 201-219, 301-319, etc. Examples:
201 = niizhwaak  bezhig                     201 = number root two hundred    one

513  = naanwaak   ashi   niswi           513 = number root five   hundred  and (ten)  three

Numbers 220-299, 320-399, etc. Examples:
231 = niizhwaak  nisimidana   ashi   bezhig
213 = number root two hundred    number root three  tens  and  one

487 – niiwaak  ishwaasimidana  ashi  niizhwaaswi
487 = number root four  hundred  number root eight  tens and seven

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By colson, February 4, 2012 10:31 pm

Macroinvertbrate Tag

Students spent time learning about the transparency water and dissolved oxygen in specific areas (Hwy 11, Hwy 7, Jay Cock and Chambers Grove). Each place a specific level that told them if the water was healthy or not. All spots checked were very good.

Water samples were taken and invertebrates were counted. Over time the invertbrates that were tolerate to pluutants grew in number. That’s bad. The invertbrates that were sensitive to polluteant started to die off – also bad.

Each student was then ID as either a stone fly, cadddisfly, mayfly, a scud, or a blood worm. Students lined up and on the mark “go” ran from one side to the other side of the field. The person who was “it” who represented pollution. If they tagged one of the invertbrites  the invertebrite became a “bloodworm”. A bloodworm is a symbol of polluted waters. It took only three or four runs across the field to shake out the “waters” showing how the pollution grws fast and leaves a negative impact.

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By admin, June 14, 2011 8:01 pm

GLIFWC stands for Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission.  Our first presentation was by Peter David, a wildlife biologist who studies and manages manoomin.  His presentation was an overview of manoomin and the role GLIFWC has in managing it.  Wild rice is an annual aquatic grass that grows well at depths of 0.5-3 ft in water that is not too acidic or dark-stained in an organic-rich substrate.  It prefers water that changes depth some annually and slow moving water.  We learned that one reason it prefers these conditions partially because otherwise the perennial plants will take over.  The big seed variety of wild rice only occurs in the MN, Western WI, and Hudson Bay drainage areas.  Wild rice grows naturally in other areas, but it has smaller seeds.  Wild rice is great healthy eating, but also has huge cultural and ecological benefits too.  We learned about the treaties and how the right to harvest rice falls under these treaties.  Also, we reviewed harvesting techniques, both past and present.

GLIFWC has five goals related to wild rice: abundance monitoring, harvest monitoring, restoration, public information and education, and research.  Mostly we discussed abundance monitoring.  GLIFWC is responsible for ceded territory that is off-reservation.  The data collected is from this area.  We learned about how Brown Spot disease can wipe out entire lakes during unusually warm seasons.  The abundance graph of rice over the past 15 years or so has high and low spots.  Factors that influence the abundance of rice over a large area are the four-year cycle of abundance on a particular lake, temperature and weather conditions, disease, and water level conditions. When the abundance of rice falls off for more than two years, scientists and GLIFWC may study the lake to try to restore the rice population.  We learned about some case studies where beaver dams, man-made dams, and carp eating the rice were problems. Sometimes lakes need to be reseeded, but first they try to restore the local seeds.  Genetic variability of wild rice is a future area of research.

Next, we talked to Wesley about language and culture projects.  We learned about Inaadiziwin, an interactive DVD with traditional hunting, gathering, and fishing with language and culture.  We decided as a group that spear fishing looks really interesting.  They are working on a new project interviewing elders.  We will be doing something similar with our project, so this was a good connection to make.  Another ranger spoke too about the importance of getting kids out doing traditional activities, especially since there is less interest and the elders are getting older.  He made us aware of internships related to science, but also law enforcement and firefighting.

Finally, we watched a short video about treaty rights.  One interesting thing we learned was the only treaties that ensured hunting, fishing, and gathering rights off-reservation is in our area and in the NW US.