Transcript ETHNOBOTANY - spsd.sk.ca

ETHNOBOTANY
The Study of plants and how they are used
in a particular culture.
ETHNOBOTANY
Plants have been used for generations all
around the world for medicine, food, tools,
crafts, or for spiritual purposes.
The purposes of this presentation are to
provide insight into the traditional uses of
plants found in and around Saskatoon, and to
suggest possible activities and resources to
help support your plant study.
The Brightwater Science and Environmental
Centre, with its varied landscapes, is a great
location to study Saskatchewan plants in their
natural settings.
decorations
natural dyes
tobacco
These plants can
be used for a
variety of things.
sunscreen
food
arts and crafts
household needs
medicine
To learn more about plants and their uses, you could:
•speak to an Elder
•read magazine articles
•ask someone in your family
•do research on the internet
•interview a park naturalist or botanist
•check out books and encyclopedias
•order the Ethnobotany Kit from the school board office
The Ethnobotany kit
provides students with puzzle
cards…...
…...when the pieces are
matched together they
show a picture of a plant
and tell what that plant
can be used for.
Magazines and
newspaper articles
provide important
information as well.
Researching and sharing family herbal remedies
is an important link to our past. Ask your
parents and grandparents how they used plants
when they were younger. I bet you will be
surprised by their answers!!
Once you have a wealth
of information it will be
time to hit the trail to
see what you can
discover for yourselves.
You might want to take a camera with you to
preserve some of the sights you take in on your
walk.
On this particular walk students learned:
that the white powder found
on the trunk of a Trembling
Aspen is a natural sunscreen.
Wild Licorice root is fifty times sweeter than cane sugar.
Stinging Nettles can give
you a bad rash if you
touch them…..
Oooooh!!!!!
….but if you rub the
rash with a Dock leaf it
will cure it.
Aaaaaaaaah!!!!
If you boil young Stinging Nettles, the poison is neutralized
and you can eat them like a vegetable…yummy!
And if you shred the stems of
old, dry nettles...
….you can braid them to make string.
Of course there are
many sources of
food such as
berries, roots, herbs
and leaves.
But did you know
that the branches of
Saskatoon berries
make great weiner
sticks because they
don’t burn easily?
The Cree used, and continue to use, many of the plants
found locally as medicines.
Willow contains salicin from which aspirin originated.
Hawthorn is used a powerful heart medicine.
The root of Wild Raspberry is used to make a tea to stop
miscarriages.
Chewed Birch leaves will neutralize bee stings.
The trail we followed at
Brightwater...
…eventually led us to….
…an actual tipi!
Inside the tipi we
drank Wild Licorice
tea and learned how
to do some string
games.
We also learned
the history of the
tipi and the Cree
values associated
with the fifteen
poles.
Afterwards students shared what they
learned in a variety of ways.
One way was through digital photography.
Some
chose
to write
about
their
walk in
a
journal
Some chose to teach their friends the string games they learned in the tipi.
While others chose to
share their new found
knowledge….
…with their friends.
No matter how or where you choose to conduct your
ethnobotany activities, we hope you have as much fun
as we did on our walk at the Brightwater Science and
Environmental Centre.
Sincerely,
Mr. Cort Dogniez and the Grade Seven students at
Lakeridge School
June, 2001