Five districts, Northern & Central Lingít Aaní
Intro page from our compilation manual for all 5 participating school districts.
In the early years of Discovery Southeast (actually named Discovery Foundation back then), we got a multi-year Eisenhower grant to conduct teacher workshops, mostly on what you could do within quick walking distance of a particular school. We began in 1991 on ‘home turf,’ Áak’w & T’aaḵú Aaní. In following years, Greg Streveler and I took those workshops ‘on the road,’ to the focal communities for 5 school districts. From north to south they were:
Jilkáat & Jilkoot Aaní (Oct 92) ● Xunaa Káawu ● (March, 93) Xutsnoowú Aaní (March, 93) ● Sheet’ká Aaní (April, 93) ● Shtax’héen Aaní (April, 93). At each of these focal towns, other teachers came in from schools in the smaller satellite communities.
Typically, Greg and I arrived around 5 days before the workshop, to scout surroundings of the schools, interview local biologists and longtime residents, and prepare materials. Before departing, we left 3-ring binders with each school librarian (and mailed them more stuff from back in J-town). As with our school materials for Áak’w & T’aaḵú Aaní, these contained:
● Summary natural history: ‘bedrock-to-bugs’
● 35mm slide show, with script. *
● Stereogram sheets. Four 3D pairs with margin coordinates for communicating points of interest. One stereoscope in cover pocket.
Okay, you’re wondering. That was 30 years ago! Do any of those notebooks still exist?! Good question! Discovery Southeast will present an award to any school librarian who can send us a photograph of the intact 1993 3-ring binder. Lessee, how about a 30-year old stereoscope from our collection? (We still use em in workshops!) only instead of expensive color-printed stereogram sheets, participants load the high-res digital pairs to their phones.
A decade ago (2012), I created a master digital version of the school manuals, 88 pages, and have been meaning to tweak it a bit for upload to JuneauNature. But usually, for something of such length, that means a 4 or 5 day exploration, dropping down a dozen or so rabbit holes . . . and so it’s remained several lines down on the to-do list. This week (end of March, 2023) I’m preparing to meet a team of middleschool teachers from throughout Lingít Aaní, preparatory to a weekend cruise to Angoon. High time to get the 2012 version up there.
* For schools of Áak’w & T’aaḵú Aaní, I’ve converted those old 35mm slideshows to powerpoints in uploadable pptx format. This has not yet been done for the Northern & Central Lingít Aaní schools. Hmmmm. . . maybe with this Angoon trip coming up, I should at least get the pptx for that “Chatham District” up there. . .
Okay, here it is, the 1993 Angoon powerpoint
And, for good measure, my personal journal from the nonstop, 2-month teacher-workshop marathon.
