Itts'usi Thëlai(Dëne)

Wanihikewin(Cree)

Trapping

Keith Lemaigre

La Loche Community School

La Loche, SK, Canada

 

 

Rekindling Traditions
Cross-Cultural Science and Technology Units
(CCSTU)

Series Editor

Glen Aikenhead
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, SK, Canada

 

CURRICULUM CONNECTION

Grades 9-11, energy, pressure

 

OVERVIEW

Beginning with a foundation in the Aboriginal science and technology of trapping small, fur bearing animals, students examine Western scientific ways of explaining forces, pressures, and energies, at work in the contemporary hunter's trap mechanisms. The unit culminates in the economic and political elements of trapping. We can care for Mother Earth by living the principles of conservation applied to people and animals. Duration: about 2 weeks.

 

PURPOSE

This unit is designed to enrich students' appreciation of Aboriginal science and technology related to trapping small, fur bearing animals (such as beaver, marten, mink, red fox, wolf, and coyote). The main aim is to pass on to students a lifestyle of past generations whose survival depended on trapping. Today this lifestyle can be learned for recreational or for scientific wildlife management purposes. The unit should demonstrate to students that they can achieve at Western science without setting aside their Aboriginal values and knowledge. Another aim, therefore, is to create an interest in Western science concepts and thereby encourage students to continue their studies in school science. A Western education is needed for success at commerce. The unit makes a connection between everyday life in a northern Saskatchewan community and physics content in the school curriculum. Knowledge of trapping (past and present) forms a bridge between Aboriginal and Western views of nature. The unit invites students to think in two worlds – the world of Aboriginal culture and the world of Western culture – helping students resolve the issue of how to care for Mother Earth. Technological literacy is given special emphasis by embedding the technology of trapping in economic and political realities of today. Students are expected to critically analyse social issues around trapping, as well as investigate Western scientific explanations of small animal traps.

 

GOALS

  1. To connect students with their community's heritage.
  2. To connect the technology of traps to a specific animals and their environments.
  3. To see the influence of social values on how technology is designed.
  4. To impress upon students the importance of the care and proper maintenance of tools and equipment.
  5. To instill in students the sense to think ahead to avoid dangerous situations.
  6. To construct the scientific ideas of pressure, kinetic and potential energy, forms of energy, and conservation of energy.
  7. To relate scientific terms and concepts to everyday knowledge.
  8. Science ideas are like useful stories.
  9. To increase a student's understanding of technology and the political/social/economic forces of change in today's world, such as the whims of the market on a resource-based industry.
  10. To show students that trapping, fishing, and hunting are no longer viable industries for employment for most people, and so other occupations must be pursued. This positions education (access to those occupations) as central to students' well being and in their best interest.
  11. To experience a real trap line.
  12. To get students to interact with their environment and their community.

 

 

OBJECTIVES

  1. Students will be able to describe several incidents that represent normal events that occurred in the old days.
  2. Students will be able to explain how snares, pitfalls, and cages have been used for survival.
  3. Students will be able to identify several different types and sizes of traps.
  4. Students will be able to identify which animals are trapped by different examples of traps.
  5. Students will explain why animals' habits and habitats influence the method of trapping and the type of trap used.
  6. Students will define criteria for humaneness of traps.
  7. Students will develop a facility to handle traps safely.
  8. Students will be able to describe "striking force" (i.e. kinetic energy in Western science) and "impact force" (i.e. "pressure" in Western science) as applied to traps and as applied to other everyday events.
  9. Students will be able to calculate the pressure involved in some everyday events.
  10. Students will be able to design and carry out a scientific experiment to test the pressure of different traps.
  11. Students will distinguish between common-sense language and Western science language, and will be able to know which one is being used at any given moment.
  12. Students will be able to describe energy as taking one of several different forms: kinetic, heat, electrical, light, nuclear, sound, chemical, etc.)
  13. Students will recognize that the physics idea called "conservation" is a cultural assumption in Western science (similar to a cultural myth); e.g. conservation of energy.
  14. Students will be able to describe potential energy and relate it to kinetic energy, as it applies to traps and other everyday occurrences.
  15. Students will construct various causes and effects associated with economics and politics in the fur trade industry.
  16. Students will realize that trapping is no longer a sustainable industry in the north today.
  17. Students will discover the extensive hard work it takes to maintain a trap line.
  18. Students will read at least part of a novel (fiction or non-fiction) related to trapping.
  19. Students will write a personal analysis of their reading.

 

LESSONS

  1. Hunting Before Metal Traps
  2. Traps
  3. Safety of Traps
  4. Western Science Description of Traps – Part I
  5. Western Science Description of Traps – Part II
  6. Why Catch Animals?
  7. On a Trap Line
  8. Extensions

Appendix: Saskatchewan Trapper Training Manual

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Trapper's Training Manual
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Northern Lights School Division
Teacher Resource Department
Bag Service 6500
La Ronge, SK S0J 1L0
(306)425-3302

 

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