Education Commons^™

Looking Down, Up, Forwards And Backwards: Telling The Story Of The Menominee Sustainable Forest, Kate Van Haren

Occasional Paper Series

The common narratives of history focus often focus on settlement and colonization. These stories often focus on the destruction of natural resources and the historic trauma of Indigenous who used and preserved them for thousands of years. The story of the Menominee, a Native nation, in southeast Wisconsin, offers a counternarrative of success. Using primary sources and the scholarship of Wisconsin-based activists, historians, and educators, this article explores the civic actions Menominee needed to protect their sustainable forest and how these lessons can be used to teach environmental stewardship in elementary classrooms.