New Energy Renewing an Ancient Culture
Since time immemorial, Tlingit – literally “People of the Tides” – have lived by the rhythm of Earth’s restless tides. What better place for indigenous Southeast Alaska students to study the gifts the tides bring than the beaches their culture have relied upon for generations?
To strengthen indigenous culture and renew their ties to their homeland, local tribal organizations and the Juneau School District partnered to create the Tlingit Culture Language and Literacy – TCLL program for students attending Harborview Elementary.
In TCLL, each area of study – from math to art – is viewed through a Tlingit cultural lens instead of from a western colonial perspective. TCLL classrooms are rich in Tlingit Language and Imagery. Bilingual vocabulary posters abound – Tlingit terms first followed by English.
The intensive program involves elders, culture bearers and language specialists working daily with students to reinforce traditional cultural connections in their educational curriculum.
Students of all ages gather before school and during lunch to sing and dance and celebrate their unique indigenous cultural identity. Each day they gather at the feet of elders in the gym for stories, wisdom and encouragement. Whenever possible, lessons are taken outside of the building and into the landscapes where their culture has thrived for millennia.
Culturally-relevant, place-based educational programs like TCLL provide a unique opportunity for Renewable Energy Alaska Project – REAP – educators to work closely with teachers and students to create engaging lessons that align more closely to their students’ culture. Because, as any teacher knows, students learn better when they make meaningful connections between new learning and their life experiences.
TCLL students learning in an environment that more closely reflects their culture take greater pride in themselves and their work – Important developments for future success in and out of school. And an important step toward reconciling a past when colonial systems, including, schools did great harm to their language and culture.
Energy is central to any culture and society, past present or future. REAP works to develop scientific energy literacy in its efforts to empower Alaska’s indigenous cultures so that they may be able to better control variables effecting their local economies and culture.
From Koyakuk to Kasaan, more Alaska Native communities are turning to renewable resources and technologies for their energy needs, keeping precious dollars circulating longer in their communities and strengthening their economies and maintaining their connections to lands that have sustained them for thousands of years.
Whether it’s wind power in Unalakleet or Solar in Hughes or renewable biomass in Kasaan, Alaska’s indigenous communities are practicing the wisdom of their elders in new and creative ways. Creating jobs and a brighter future for the next generation of Alaskans.
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