How to teach Native American regions

Why this matters

A student can match each nation to its home on a worksheet and still think the Inuit built snow houses because they liked the cold. The worksheet never asks why a home wouldn't work somewhere else, so the teacher has to wait for quiz day to find out.

Native American regions and the homes built there

Maps of Native American regions group nations by their homelands, such as the Arctic, the Pacific Northwest Coast, the Southwest and the Eastern Woodlands. Students need to understand that each nation built its homes from what its region gave it. Inuit families built winter snow houses in the treeless Arctic, the Kwakwaka'wakw built cedar plank houses on the rainy Pacific Northwest Coast, Pueblo families built with adobe bricks of sun-dried mud in the dry Southwest, and the Haudenosaunee covered longhouses with elm bark in the Eastern Woodlands.

In the activity, each student moves a home to a region where it fails, reads that region's card and tells Sparky why the home doesn't work there. When a student's reason is wrong, such as "they liked the cold", Sparky sends them back to the region card instead of marking the answer wrong, which a worksheet can't do.

Maya moves the snow house to the desert

Maya loves building snow forts. She can name each nation's home, but she thinks people chose their homes because they liked them, not because of the land.

Every student in the class gets the same greeting and the same Home Swap interactive: four homes and four region cards that list the weather, trees, animals and land. Each student moves the homes on their own copy, and Sparky's next message depends on what that student just said. The homes are the Inuit snow house, the Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl) plank house, the Pueblo adobe house and the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) longhouse.

Sparky starts from Maya's own homeSparky sends Maya back to a region cardA right answer gets a harder question

M

Maya

Interest: Building snow fortsStarting point: Names each nation's homeGets stuck: Thinks people chose homes they liked

Sparky

Hi, explorer! Long ago, four Native nations built four very different homes, and these nations still live in North America today. First, tell me: what is your home made of, and what is the weather like where you live?

Maya

my house is made of wood. it snows a lot in winter and i love building snow forts

Sparky

That's cool. A wood frame keeps out the cold and snow really well! Now, open Home Swap and drag one of the four homes to a different region. What went wrong, and why do you think that happened?

Maya

i moved the snow house to the desert and it melted. the inuit built snow houses because they liked the cold

Sparky

Good observation about the melting! Now look at the Arctic card in Home Swap. What does it say about the land or weather there?

Maya

it says almost no trees and snow most of the year. so they couldnt build with wood. snow was what they had

Sparky

Exactly right. The land had snow and no trees, so snow was the building material.

Understanding check

Pueblo families wore light cotton clothes in the hot desert. What would they need to wear if they lived on the rainy Pacific Northwest Coast instead?

Maya

something that keeps the rain off like a raincoat. maybe they could make it from the cedar trees on the card

Sparky

Great thinking. The land gives the material, just like with the homes! Now think about your own town. It snows in winter and you have wood around. What would your home look like if you designed it using what your land gives you?

Maya

a wood cabin from the pine trees by my house with a steep roof so the snow slides off, and a big fireplace inside

Sparky

That steep roof is a smart design. It lets the snow slide right off, just like your land requires! Each nation built with what its land gave it, and so did you.

Said the Inuit liked the cold, went back to the Arctic card, explained the snow house with the land, then designed a home for her own town

Maya is an example student, and Sparky's replies are as it wrote them, apart from punctuation. The Home Swap pictures are the same interactive split in two.

What Flint did for Maya

• Sparky gave Maya the same Home Swap as everyone else, so she could move the snow house to the desert and see it fail.
• When Maya said the Inuit liked the cold, Sparky sent her to the Arctic card instead of giving her the answer.
• Once Maya used the land to explain the snow house, Sparky asked a harder question about what Pueblo families would wear on the rainy coast.
• Sparky drew the cabin Maya designed for her own snowy town.

A teacher can't do this by hand for 30 students at once. Sparky does it in every student's chat.

The activity page shows who still thinks homes were a choice

While students work, Needs attention lists each student who is stuck and the message that showed it. Once three or more students submit, activity analytics sums up what the class understood and what to practice next.

Set up the activity for free

Home Swap: Move a Home, See What Goes Wrong is in Flint's public library, with the greeting, the Home Swap interactive and Sparky's guidelines already set up. Open it, duplicate it into a free Flint account, and assign it to a class. Every student gets their own Home Swap, their own questions and a picture of the home they design, and the activity page fills in as they work.

For more history and geography activities, see Flint for social studies.