All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life

Teaching Activity. By Julie Treick O’Neill and Tim Swinehart. Rethinking Schools. 16 pages.
A role play on the Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change asks students to develop a list of demands to present to the rest of the world at a climate change meeting.

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, Bill Bigelow, and Andrew Duden. Article by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Rethinking Schools. 15 pages.
A role play helps students recognize the issues at stake in the historic struggle of the Standing Rock Sioux to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Article. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools, Fall 2018.
Teaching hope instead of despair, teachers invite students to research “climate warriors,” those who “know the truth” and yet are not defeated by it.

Teaching Guide. Edited by Bill Bigelow and Tim Swinehart. Rethinking Schools. 2014. 400 pages.
Articles, student readings, and teaching activities to understand environmental problems and imagine solutions.

Overview of Native American activism since the late 1960s, including protests at Mt. Rushmore, Alcatraz, Standing Rock, and more.

Picture Book. By Simon J. Ortiz, illustrated by Sharol Graves. 2022. 32 pages.
This powerful telling of the history of the Native/Indigenous peoples of North America recounts their story from Creation to the invasion and usurpation of Native lands.

Native Americans took over and held Alcatraz Island as Indian Land during the Alcatraz Occupation.

The Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation of Arizona stopped construction of the Orme Dam after ten years of organizing and protesting.

About 250 Sioux Indians, led by members of the American Indian Movement, converged on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, launching the famous 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee.