Exploring
Dakota Territory

Grade: 6

Working in groups, students will come together to map the significant locations in Dakota territory. They will be provided with descriptions of the location, which they will map using an atlas. They will plot the points together to understand the full extent of Dakota territory.

Essential Question

What affects or impacts humans settling in certain areas?

Big Idea

Students will understand that the Dakota people had habitation areas across Canada and the United States, and they spent time on the land at those locations for a number of reasons.

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GRADE 6 LESSON PLAN

Teaching Aids

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Lesson Outline

TIME DURATION: Approximately 3 ( 1 hour) sessions
1. Determine student background knowledge about why people move
2. Mapping skills
3. Examining information and mapping points

STAGE 1: SASKATCHEWAN CURRICULUM OUTCOME

PRIMARY OUTCOME
•  Social Studies: DR6.2: Analyze ways in which the land affects human settlement patterns and social organization, and ways in which human habitation affects land.

• The 3 Level Questioning Guide can be collected to look at the information that each group came up with
• Question Shells can be collected to analyze student’s depth of answers
• Track the input students give in the discussions they have in their groups and what they offer in class discussion
• Teacher Assessment Checklist

MOTIVATIONAL SET:

*Habitation areas can be a complex topic from an Indigenous perspective. The Dakota Territory Information Card and this link can support building background knowledge.

Part 1: Determine Background Knowledge
1. Use the Ask a Question PowerPoint to determine what background knowledge students have about maps and why people settle in different areas.

MAIN PROCEDURES:

3 Level Questioning Guide Strategy

  1.  Share with students that they are going to be looking at the how and where the Dakota people moved through their traditional territory to discover what their settlement patterns were in relationship to.
  2.  Hand out the map you are choosing for your class to map the Dakota traditional territory.
  3.  Go through mapping skills that students will need such as:
    •  how to label a map
    •  locating information in an atlas
    •  locations of provinces and states
    •  reading a legend
  4.  Discuss as a class what the criteria is for putting information on a map.
  5.  Split the class into 6 groups. Discuss roles of group members.
  6.  Each group is given 4 mapping paragraphs from the Mapping Points Student Package. It would be beneficial to give students access to these on a computer because there are links that students can click on to find more information. There is a Master Map for the teacher.
  7.  After each group has mapped their 4 points, they will discuss the information that they have found out about their 4 points and fill in the first 2 levels of the 3 Level Questioning Guide.
  8.  Afterwards, regroup your students so that all students can map all the points from the other groups.
  9.  Once students have all the points recorded on their own map, they can return to their first group and complete the third level of questioning from the handout.

CLOSING:

  1.  As a class, discuss the vastness of the traditional area that the Dakota covered. At this point, the Student Information card on Dakota Land Use could be shared.
  2.  As a class, discuss findings from the questioning guide. Record the information on a whiteboard or chart paper.
  3.  Have students come to the understanding that the Dakota people moved through their traditional territory to meet their needs – different parts of the territory meeting different needs — and build/maintained relationships with family, friends, and allies.
  4.  From the information that has been collected and analyzed, each student can create their own Question Shell that they can then answer to show an understanding about the Dakota and their traditional territory. Question Shells are sentence stems that you can provide to students to help students create questions that are more likely to reveal their thinking. Some examples of question shells that could be used are:
    •  How are …and … different?
    •  How are … and … similar?
    •  What are the strengths and weakness of living…?
    •  Why is … an example of …?

POSSIBLE ADAPTATIONS, DIFFERENTIATIONS OR EXTENSIONS:

Adaptations
• Vocabulary in the mapping paragraphs can be hard and different students will need different supports.
• Some groups may need more adult guidance than other groups

Extensions
• Examine other First Nations habitation areas

Materials Required

  • CLASS SET OF ATLASES OR THE ABILITY TO LOCATE LOCATIONS FROM A MAP

  • COMPUTERS (OPTIONAL BUT VERY HELPFUL WHEN MAPPING POINTS, BECAUSE SOME OF THE PARAGRAPHS HAVE LINKS)