This is not specifically about birding, it is about different perspectives on the natural world and our place in it. I have been taking courses and workshops online from the Outdoor Learning School and have found their content to be thought-provoking, engaging, and generally well-organized. Some of their content is free and they offer a sliding scale for their paid offerings, many of which are offered free to Indigenous participants.
I want to share a few of their upcoming offerings with you and encourage you to look at their programming generally, especially if you have any role, formal or informal, as an educator.
I am particularly excited about a 4 course program coming up this summer with Dr. Lyla June Johnston on Indigenous Scientific Principles and Applications. Dr. Johnston was one of the speakers in another program I am working through, Season 1 of the 4 Seasons of Indigenous Learning.
If you want to feel some much needed hope, I recommend watching her 13 minute 2022 TED talk here.
Another offering I am looking forward to is The Birds of Anishinaabe Aki Returns. I participated in the first session and it was fascinating to get into the meanings of the Anishinaabe names for birds. The Anishinaabe names are descriptive, insightful, and often poetic. They are very clearly rooted in entirely different relationship between the humans doing the naming and the birds being named than that of the European colonizers of this land, who named birds after themselves or in reference to markings only visible on dead birds in the hand. This offering is free to Indigenous participants and has a sliding fee scale for others. (Note that prices are listed in Canadian dollars. If you pay by credit card, the amount will be converted at the conversion rate for the day. If you do not already know, you should check whether your credit card company charges a foreign transaction fee.)
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