Theme: Growing Cultural
Understanding
Ethnobotany
The People-Plant Connection
"As part of our plant studies, I invited my fourth and fifth graders to brainstorm all of the items they could that contained corn," reports Tucson, AZ, teacher Michelle Tuchek. "They came up with a lot of ideas -- corn chips, cornmeal, popcorn, and more." Michelle then brought in a variety of labels from cereals, cosmetics, canned fruits (with corn syrup), and so on, challenging students to look for evidence of corn, then to group the items according to the number of corn-related products each contained. "Students were amazed at just how prevalent corn products were," she relates. "They began to read labels voraciously and created a running list (mini-ears on a bulletin board cornstalk) with information on all of the corn-related items they'd found." Through research, she adds, they discovered more about the importance of corn to the lives, worship, and folklore of indigenous people from their area.
From our morning breakfast cereal to our cotton sheets, we're utterly dependent on plants for much more than the life-sustaining oxygen they produce during photosynthesis. Plant products, interactions, and references are so much a part of the fabric of our lives that we rarely stop to even acknowledge their impact. Throughout history, plants have been the source of medicines, fibers, paper products, cosmetics, spices, building materials, and fuels, besides being our sustenance. They have affected (and been affected by) the course of human history. Perhaps the most significant shifts for both humans and plants resulted from our transition from a hunting and gathering people to farmers who to collected and replanted seeds of desirable plants. Since then, that continued human need to cultivate, acquire, and otherwise depend on plants has triggered wars, famine, and waves of migration. It has played a key role in social and technological shifts such as the Industrial Revolution, with both plants and humans continually adapting to the changing relationship.
Our language is rife with plant symbolism -- putting down roots, cool as a cucumber, and so on. (The Chinese, meanwhile, politely ask if your rice bowl is filled when they want to know how you're doing!) The multiple roles and depictions of plants in religion, folklore, celebrations, music, art, and poetry gives us insight into the different meanings plants have had for humans. Different cultures have had very distinctive relationships with certain plants. Many Native American cultures, for instance, dependent on corn for survival, had corn gods, corn maidens, special corn-sowing dances, and harvest festivals of thanks. They developed many ways to preserve and use corn -- even devising some of the earliest calendars to keep track of harvest and planting schedules.
Ethnobotany, broadly defined, is the study of the multiple roles of plants in a society -- the dynamic interrelationships between humans and plants. In the classroom, you can use these relationships as a lens for growing explorations. It can provide a "hook" for exploring history and cultures, engage students in appreciating cultural diversity and ethnic traditions, and instill a curiosity and appreciation for the need to preserve a diversity of plant life.
Ethnobotanists who study the relationship past cultures had with plants collaborate with anthropologists, archaeologists, and other scientists to look for a variety of clues -- How do present cultures use certain plants? How are plants depicted in ancient art? What evidence can we find by examining soil samples of seeds, pollen, and other plant parts? Your students can become ethnobotanists and explore people/plant relationships through many different types of activities. The related articles give you a broad appreciation for the range the possibilities for engaging students in exploring this fertile realm.
Exploring People/Plant Relationships
Starting with Cultures
One entry point into ethnobotany is to start with specific cultures. Your social studies themes can provide a springboard for exploring the historical relationships different cultures (Native Americans, U.S. Colonial settlers, Mexicans) have with plants. Students might begin by examining their own use of and relationship to plants, or by finding out how their elders and ancestors or groups indigenous to their region use and relate to plants. The suggestions below may help spark your thinking about engaging students in a cultural/plant exploration.
Become ethnobotanical interviewers. Question parents, grandparents, and community elders about changes in foods eaten or plants grown over their lifetimes; culturally important recipes; special gardening techniques; plant or food folklore; memories of plants used for celebrations; and medicinal uses of specific plants. Consider partnering with elders to grow "reminiscence gardens." Or experiment to "test" some of the folk/health wisdom about certain plants (that mint tea eases indigestion, for instance), cautioning students not to try ingesting any plant preparation unless deemed safe by a reliable adult and reference materials!
Compare cultural food preferences. Have students with different cultural backgrounds keep lists of all of the plants they eat in a week, then compare lists and discuss observations and questions that emerge.
Visit an ethnic market. Identify unusual plant foods and products and check labels to discover how different plants and plant parts are used. Talk to owners about preparing different foods, then try some.
Discover the origins of plants growing nearby. Examples might include those in your classroom, outdoor garden, or a nearby field. If they're not native to this country, explore how and why they traveled here and map their routes from their countries of origin. Explore their folklore and historical uses and their ecological roles (food and shelter for wildlife, soil stabilization, etc.)
Explore what you value about plants. Have students choose specific plants or plant groups (e.g., trees) that they value and write about why they value them. Or have them choose several of the roles plants serve (e.g., medicinal, recreational, aesthetic, religious, culinary) and write about a plant they value in each category.
Grow foods or use gardening techniques from another culture. Discover through their folklore how and why they value different types of plants and planting systems. For instance, research, plant, and raise a Native American "three sisters garden" (corn, bean, and squash); a Colonial garden; an English cottage garden; a Japanese garden; a Mexican garden; an African garden; or a Southern plantation kitchen garden.
Brainstorm and discuss why you think certain foods or other plant products might have become important to certain cultures: potatoes to the Irish, corn to native North Americans, rice to the Chinese, for instance. Then research to find out, while also growing some of the crops.
Grow and save "heirloom" seeds of old plant varieties. Learn about their histories, and try to determine why different varieties were valued.
Explore different works of art, music, and writing to look for plant images and references. Discuss what you can infer from the pieces about each culture's relationship with the depicted plants.
Keep a running list of plant-related words and phrases that reflect plant-related images and metaphors (family roots, she's blossoming, cool as a cucumber, and so on.) What information do these phrases give us about plants or how we value plants?
Create a list of ways in which plants affect our lives, and a parallel list of ways in which we affect plants. Compare lists and discuss reactions and questions that emerge.
Become ethnobotanists/archaeologists. Imagine you are searching through soil samples for evidence of plants from a past culture. Bring in a range of soil samples to dissect and observe (you may want to add some small seeds, plant parts, and sand to make a diverse mixture of particles.) Analyze the mixtures and separate out particles by making a solution and repeatedly filtering it through cheesecloth or filter paper. What evidence can you find of plant materials?
For Part 2 of this article, click
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Author: Eve Pranis
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