Lincoln Elementary School - Olympia, Washington

#8 Additional Activities for Curbing Polarization

There are many ways to bring the ideas of the Northwest Coastal Native American, farmer, fishermen and women, salmon, and logger to the children.  Here are some suggestions:

1. Drawing accompanied by traditional stories, movies, or music from the standpoint of these different stake holders.  If followed up with discussion, each child can focus on understanding the dynamics between salmon and one of these stake holders.  They can then share what they have learned during discussion.  This will be the time in which they learn from the other children about the other stake holders.

2. Having the children brainstorm and research what they think are the major components of one stake holder and then making crosswords with those ideas.  The children can then pass out their work to the rest of the class to share what they learned.  The point is to understand how and why salmon are connected to many people and why.  We strongly recommend talking to people that directly correlate with the stake holder of study.

3. Giving the children clay, paper maiche, mask materials or some sort of craft materials with which they could create a symbol of what they think the salmon represents to the stake holder of study.  This is also an excellent activity for children who want to create symbols of why salmon are special to them individually.