BCPS Outdoor Science Education
Native Americans and the Environment
Fourth Grade
Camp Puh’tok
· Directions and Phone Numbers
· Overview and Indicators
· Teacher Notes
· Teacher Checklist
· General Information
· Background Information for Teachers and Parents
· Station Information
Camp Puh’tok Directions
Camp Puh'tok is readily reached via the Baltimore Beltway (I-695). Take exit 24 North on the Baltimore-Harrisburg Interstate (I-83) to Mt. Carmel Road - Hereford exit 27. Turn right onto Mt. Carmel Road. Make a right on York Road (traffic light) and proceed one block. Turn left onto Monkton Road (MD Route 138). Drive 0.7 (seven-tenths) of a mile and bear left onto Big Falls Road. The main camp entrance is located 1.2 (one and two-tenths) miles on the right and marked by a large wooden sign.
Phone Numbers
Baltimore County Senior Teacher Naturalist/Team Leader Pat Ghingher 410.294.0426
Office of Science 410.887.4251
Camp Puh’tok September – May only 410.329.6560
NATIVE AMERICAN FALL/WINTER PROGRAM OVERVIEW
The CAMP PUH’TOK 4TH GRADE NATIVE AMERICAN PROGRAM includes a 30 to 45 minute auditorium program and a full day of parent run stations that include Native American dwellings, tools, fire making, legend telling, face painting, cordage, games, and weapons. Emphasis will be placed on how the Native American used technology and available natural resources to adapt to the environment. Teachers need to send a minimum of 6 parents to be trained and plan for at least 5 more parents to come as chaperones. Four dollars per student is charged for facility use. September - December
GRADE 4 VOLUNTARY SCIENCE CURRICULUM INDICATORS
Content Standard: Environmental Science
Indicator: Environmental Issues
The student will recognize and explain that people depend on, change, and are affected by the environment
VOCABULARY
Algonquian: a group of North American Indians that inhabited Maryland
Breechclout: square of leather worn by men and boys; Buckskin: skin of a deer
Clan: a family group within a tribe, descended from a common ancestor
Cordage: ropes or cord made from natural resources such as sinew, bark, and grass
Dwelling: house, shelter, place to live
Lard: fat
Natural resources: objects found in nature that can be used such as trees, water, nuts
Ochre: a rock containing iron that has oxidized
Quiver: a container or sheath for carrying arrows
Sinew: a tendon (a tough cord of connective tissue that holds the muscle to bone)
Tinder: a flammable material used to make a fire from a spark, such as grass, milkweed, and cattail
Smoke hole: an opening at the top of a dwelling that allows the smoke from a fire to escape
TEACHER NOTES
Prepare at least 6 volunteer parents for the station leader training date (teachers new to program may also come to training). If you have more than 6 parents willing to run the stations, send a maximum of 12 parents to be trained. If you have less than 5 parents willing to train, contact Pat Ghingher at 410.294.0426 before the training date. Large groups of 60 must send extra parents.
PARENT SELECTION (Please make sure parents are aware of their responsibilities)
? When selecting parents to attend the training, keep in mind that they will need to attend a half day of training and will be expected to lead a station for the entire day of the field trip. (If a parent cancels on the day of the field trip, the teacher may have to cover the missing parent’s station.)
? Lead Parent : Choose a responsible parent from the trained parent group to be in charge of the station leaders. They can handle any problems that may occur and be responsible for calling all parents on the morning of the field trip to confirm attendance.
? Station leader parents are NOT CHAPERONES. They will be teaching a station and need to arrive for station set-up 45 minutes (9:00 – 9:15 AM) prior to the student’s arrival.
? Request parent chaperones to accompany the students on the trip. You will need a parent per 8 to 10 students.
? Students and parents should be organized into FIVE travel groups prior to the trip. Groups one through five will be the bear, buffalo, elk, gecko, and raven clans.
Trips run rain or shine. The trip will be cancelled if Baltimore County Schools are closed or the Hereford Zone is closed. Delayed opening for your school will also cancel the trip. Any other cancellation comes from the school taking the trip. Rescheduling cannot be guaranteed.
Tentative schedule*: 9:45 - 10:00 Bus arrival & unloading
10:40 -10:50 Opening
10:50 - 2:15 Stations and lunch
2:15 – 2:30 Departure
***The schedule can be moved up or back depending on the bus arrival. This is a full day field trip therefore outside buses are recommended to allow time for completion of activities.
TEACHER CHECK-OFF LIST FOR THE NATIVE AMERICAN PROGRAM
___ Informed station leader parents they should arrive at Camp Puh’tok at 9:00AM.
___Remind station leader parents to bring the following:
- Face Painting: Wet Ones, yarn, masking tape
- Fire Making: 3-4 hour fire log, tinder
- Weapons: 3-4 hour fire log
- Dwellings: popcorn, journey bread, jerky, (3-4 hour fire log optional)
___ Check made out to: Salvation Army, Camp Puh’tok ($4.00/student).
17433 Big Falls Road Bring check on the day of trip
Monkton, Maryland 21111
___Buses ordered for a FULL day field trip. If possible, plan on arriving at 9:45AM and leaving at 2:30PM
___Medical and emergency information on each student.
___Medication for individuals (check with school nurse).
___Permission slips signed by parent.
___Divide the entire group into 5 equal groups with at least one chaperone (This does not include the trained parents). Have the groups numbered 1 through 5. Pat will give each group a clan stick prior to their station activities to identify the student travel groups (bear, buffalo, elk, gecko, raven).
___Prepare students for the trip: Dress in warm layers and have rain gear if there is a chance of rain. Pack a trash free lunch. Have appropriate shoes AND socks for the outside stations. Bathrooms will be available at lunch and during the inside stations. (Students must be accompanied by a chaperone to the bathroom). Water fountains or food machines are NOT available.
___ Student/ chaperone nametags
___After reading over the script, you may want to prepare your students for the trip with some pre trip activities such as, time lines, Native American legends, vocabulary words etc.
___Bring 1 package of paper towels for bathroom use from your school supply.
___Cancellations due to weather or other reasons should be called in by the teacher
to Pat Ghingher at 410-294-0426
TEACHER AND PARENT BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON NATIVE AMERICAN S
(Resource books: The Native American s/An Illustrated History, 1993, edited by Betty and Ian Ballantin and Native American s of the Northeast by Colin G. Calloway)
Thousands of years ago, when the first Native American set foot on North American soil, he found himself in an unforgiving land. The simple act of survival must have consumed all of his strength. He used crude tools and weapons and had some sense of society, of community, and of cooperation. Recent evidence supports the theory that the Native American populations share a common genetic ancestor, which may have come from an Asian homeland. It is thought that the first migration throughout North, Central, and South America may have arrived twelve to fifteen and possibly twenty-five thousand years ago.
Archaeologists generally believe that the first North Americans followed the “game trail” across the Bering Strait. During the Ice Age, most of the earth’s waters froze and the ocean levels lowered. The floor of the Bering Strait was exposed, making it possible to walk from Siberia to Alaska. As the ice melted, water covered the Bering Strait and North America became separated from the Old World until Europeans began to venture across the Atlantic thousands of years later.
Many Native American Cultures believe a different story. They feel they have lived in North America since time began. Creation stories vary from tribe to tribe, but most believe the world they lived in was created on the back of a sea turtle. Native American stories or legends tell why things were the way they were. Legends were told and retold during the long winter nights as children and elders alike huddled close to the warm fires. Children learned that they needed to acquire knowledge about the world around them to live in harmony with the earth. They needed to look after the land, respect the animals, and use the plants and other resources with care. If they forgot to do these things, the balance and harmony that was given to the world at its creation would be lost.
Most archaeologists divide the history of the Native Americans into three periods. The Paleo-Native American period was from approximately 25,000 to 10,000 years ago. The inhabitants hunted large animals like the mammoth and the mastodon. The caribou and musk ox, which now live further north, were also hunted. During the Archaic period, 10,000 to 3,000 years ago, the warmer, wetter climate supported deer, elk, bear, small mammals, fish, and birds, which were hunted by the Native Americans. New wild plants were able to grow and berries, nuts, and roots were gathered for food and medicine. The Native Americans moved with the seasons to hunt and gather where the natural resources were plentiful. Improved tools were made along with shelters and dugout canoes. The Woodland period from 3,000 to 1500A.D. found the Native Americans making pottery, hunting with bow and arrows, and developing systems of agriculture for crops of corn, squash, and beans. Much advancement had spread from the south to the northeast. In the shorter growing period of northern New England, cultivated crops were not as important. The Native Americans settled in larger numbers in villages. From 1500A.D. to the present is the Contact period, when the Native Americans were in constant contact with the Europeans.
The first identifiable Native American people are called Clovis, after an archaeological site in New Mexico. Perceptions of these people come from a mammoth kill site dating from 9500 B.C. to 9000 B.C. These were probably the first Americans. Some archaeologists feel that Native Americans could have arrived as early as forty thousand years ago. There is little evidence to support this controversial theory. A site known as the Meadowcroft Shelter in southwestern Pennsylvania provided evidence of a fire pit, two human bone fragments, and some stone tools. The oldest radiocarbon date is just under nineteen thousand years ago. This however, is controversial and at this time, the only acceptable proof of the earliest occupation of the western Hemisphere comes from the Clovis presence.
The Native American used multiple survival strategies such as hunting, fishing, harvesting wild plants, and farming. This led to a great diversity in the Americas, which was dependent upon the regional extremes of temperature and climate.
As with the Clovis society, most developing cultures had respect for the animals that helped sustain them. The carcass may have been butchered in a special way, using all parts of the animal. In the southwest, men continued to hunt but the economic burden shifted to the women. Their foraging and gathering made them principal providers. It became a matriarchal society with prosperous women sometimes taking more than one husband.
Unlike their Clovis ancestors, the California Native Americans adapted to their environment relying on more than a few species of plants and animals. They lived off fish, shellfish, seals, whales, deer, bear, elk, rabbit, and a variety of seeds. They hunted and foraged but did not farm. These nonagricultural people had the highest aboriginal population density in North America.
Middle American civilizations became more dependent on agriculture. This includes the Mayan (300-900A.D.) and Aztec (1325-1520A.D.) civilizations. The sedentary lifestyle (remaining in one area) created multisocietal systems with marriages occurring with social equals only. Great cities were built and land was looked at differently than it was by the hunter/gatherer societies. Most commoners were farmers living outside the city limits but craft specialists, traders, and warriors could be found in the city.
The southwest developed a diversified lifestyle combining farming with hunting and gathering. The Eastern Woodlands hosted Native American people speaking at least 68 distinct languages. This area was inhabited by people for at least 10,000 years. They learned to protect themselves against fluctuations in natural resources by economic exchanges with others; by moving their home range with the seasons to take advantage of availability of grasses, fruits, nuts, fish, and game; by staying close to the major river valleys; and by storing food for future use.
Bison-hunting and maize-growing Native Americans prospered in the Great North American Plains with its cold winters and hot summers. Like all societies, the Native Americans of the plains had conflicts. Most could be resolved through mitigation. If this failed, the common form of Plains warfare usually involved ambushes and ritualized battles causing few deaths.
Horses evolved on American soil forty million years ago but became extinct in their homeland. The horse was not reintroduced until 1493 by Christopher Columbus. During pre-Columbian times, the Native American hunted the buffalo on foot. The Plains Native Americans developed ways to kill large numbers of bison and minimize danger to the hunters. One way was to send the bison over the edge of a precipice.
Northeast Native Americans
In post-Columbian times, the Northeast was occupied by Algonquian communities along the coastal watersheds and Iroquois living along the interior waterways. These were two of the largest language families in the area. Tribes that were included under the Algonquian family might not have spoken the same exact language, but shared similarities. Both groups were matrilineal with the women performing the life-giving duties of farming. Storable food raised by the farming communities were traded for furs, meat, nuts, and exotic goods such as flints, mica, and shells bartered for along the coast-to-coast trade routes.
Dwellings consisted of longhouses and wigwams. The longhouses were occupied by many families of the same matrilineage and were 50 to 200 feet long and 25 feet wide. Sometimes a palisade, or tall fence was built around the village for defense. Northeastern Native American tribes usually consisted of several villages, bands, and clans loosely united by language, kinship, and shared interests. Villages usually numbered in the hundreds but could be as large as several thousand. Numbers would vary with the seasons.