Field Museum

This resource kit centers Indigenous knowledges and star stories. With this toolkit, students will learn of the importance of Sky and Stars to the past, present, and future of Native peoples. Through interactive exploration, multimedia, and Indigenous star stories, students will connect to their own experiences, identities, personal wellness, and to the night sky. Learn more about the Field Museum's Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories exhibit by following this link: https://www.fieldmuseum.org/exhibitions/native-truths-our-voices-our-stories

Native Truths: Indigenous Astronomy

Created by: Field Museum

Learn about Lorene Sisquoc and her community's basket weaving tradition. This is a 360 degree image of a basket Lorene made at the Field Museum in Chicago. Visitors coming to the museum helped her make the basket. She taught each person how to add a line to the basket.

Native Truths: Lorene Sisquoc: California Basket Story

Created by: Field Museum

Grade 6-12

This creature puzzled scientists for decades! Is it a vertebrate? Is it an invertebrate? Work your way through this kit to find out!

Tully Monster Mystery

Created by: Field Museum

Grade 3-5

Learn about strategies used to make discoveries about the past. Apply disciplinary lenses to objects from history and modern day. Explore the relationship between form, function, and technological change.

Investigating Form and Function

Created by: Field Museum, History Colorado

Grade 3-5

Storytelling is often associated with fairytales and imaginary characters. In this kit, observe and evaluate storytelling techniques that continue to be used by Native American artists and communities and serve as first-hand primary sources to life before and after the arrival of colonial settlers in 1492. (Cover image: Courtesy of the Field Museum of Natural History.)

More Than Words: Storytelling as a Primary Source

Created by: Field Museum

Grade 3-8

Explore what a land acknowledgment is and why they are important.

Whose Land Are You On?

Created by: Field Museum

Grade 3-8

Learn about what life was like in Ancient Egypt. Immerse yourself in Egyptian culture with games, hieroglyphs, Gods and Goddesses, and the ancient art of mummification.

Ancient Egyptian Life

Created by: Field Museum

Grade 3-5

The mysteries of space often leave us with more questions than answers, but meteorites can actually tell us a lot about the history of our solar system. Learn about the identification process and discover whether you are meteorite, or meteor-wrong.

Meteorite, Meteorwrong

Created by: Field Museum

Grade 9-12

Students will discover the fascinating world of early land plants, commonly known as bryophytes. Learn about the significance of these small plants and their roles as environmental indicators, and predictors of climate change.

Early Land Plants

Created by: Field Museum

Grade 3-8

Today's Dinos

Created by: Field Museum

Grade 6-8

Discover how researchers use Field Museum's millions of specimen to document and study evolution and the world's biodiversity.

Museum Collections and Research

Created by: Field Museum

Grade 9-12

Explore some of the ways we can know about the past. Practice and compare the many disciplinary lenses we can use to learn about the past while exploring the form, function, continuity and change of objects from across history.

Exploring Ways of Knowing

Created by: Field Museum, History Colorado

Grade 9-12

Object

Kelly Church's Basket

This is the basket Kelly Church made at the Field Museum opening of the Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories exhibition. Look at the basket closely. Observe its parts and patterns.

Field Museum

Object

"Sacred Powwow Chair ca. 1980"

Contemporary Ledger Art by Chris Pappan

Field Museum

Object

"Return from War Dance"

Linda Haukaas is one of very few women ledger artists. She hews to the “traditional” style of ledger art, but her themes reflect on the contemporary condition of Native women. Ms. Haukaas created a piece for the Museum, of her own design and choosing. Ms. Haukaas’ work is in collections through the United States, including the Smithsonian Institution, as well as in international collections like the British Museum. There is a chapter about her work in the record from a book by Richard Pearce on women ledger artists, “Women in Ledger Art.”

Field Museum

Object

Silverhorn (Kiowa) Tipi Liner in the Cheyenne Style

"Biography of a Warrior Painted on Animal Skin" Cheyenne Indians of the Plains

Field Museum

Object

Prayer Book in Yi Script

This Catholic catechism, written in Yi script (not Chinese), is based on the work of missionary Paul Vial. In the 1890s, Father Vial wanted to share the word of God in the language of the Sani people. The Sani are one of several minority groups in China that speak different dialects but use a similar writing system called Yi. Vial developed a French-Yi dictionary and began translating the Bible. By 1917, several other Yi translation systems were created and used to publish booklets in China.

Field Museum

Object

Ink Stone - Qing Dynasty

Because painting and calligraphy were so central to a scholar's artistic life, the tools associated with these arts (brush, paper, ink, and inkstone) were known as the Four Treasures of the Study. A scholar selected these tools with great care, choosing the best materials available and motifs and imagery with personal significance. These objects had special meaning to the scholar who owned them and would have expressed his outlook and philosophies to friends and colleagues who visited his studio

Field Museum

Object

Stinkpot

A ceramic stinkpot, sometimes called a "thunder stone" was a useful weapon both on land and at sea. Filled with gunpowder, nails, metal balls, and materials that would stink when ignited, these weapons could cause great harm.

Field Museum

Object

Ceramic Pillow

Ceramic pillows may look uncomfortable but the soft curve and height are said to comfortably support the head and neck. Headrests made of ceramic or wood have been used by different cultures in Africa, India, and the Pacific Islands. Though ceramic pillows weren't always popular, they were used in China for approximately 1,400 years, well into the 20th century.

Field Museum

Object

Evidence in the Unwritten

Curator of Anthropology Gary Feinman talks about his work in Mexico and China and the different types of evidence Anthropologists and Archaeologists use to learn about the past.

Field Museum

Object

Ask an Artifact

An artifact has many stories to tell. Hear from a Field Archaeologist about the types of questions they might ask to learn about the past by looking at artifacts.

Field Museum

Object

Basket

This basket could be used to carry supplies to a civil service exam. It's marked with the character fu for "good fortune", perhaps a blessing from someone with high hopes for a test-taker's success.

Field Museum

Object

Cheat's Handkerchief

To prevent the use of books or other aids, scholars taking the civil service exam were frisked from head to toe, twice. Yet some test takers found ways to smuggle in help. This piece of silk above is a cheat sheet that could have been sewn into the lining of a robe or disguised as a handkerchief. The miniature text covering both sides includes more than 20 sample essays and prompts for typical exam questions.

Field Museum

Activity

Evaluate: Create Your Own Constellation (Digitally)!

Use the sky map to circle your own constellation using the annotation tools. Tell or write the story of the constellation you created.

Created by: Field Museum

Activity

Evaluate: Create Your Own Constellation (On Paper)!

Watch the video of Karen Ann Hoffman talking about Sky Woman. Look at the constellations map. Design your own pattern, tell it's story. What pattern will you make? What story does it tell?

Created by: Field Museum

Activity

Indigenous Astronomy: Vocabulary

Learn new terms and words that you will see in this lesson. Practice using these terms and words!

Created by: Field Museum

Activity

See, Think, Wonder: Night Sky Worksheet

Examine the images of the night sky in the previous activity. What is going on? What clues can you find that tell you more about the location, details, and purpose of the image? Write what you can see, what you think about the image, and what you wonder about it. What questions do you have about it? What else do you want to know about it?

Created by: Field Museum

Activity

See, Think, Wonder: Night Sky Images

Look at the slides of the night sky. Choose one image that stands out to you. Use the See, Think, Wonder strategy in the next section to explore the images.

Created by: Field Museum

Activity

Elaborate: Constellations

What is a constellation? A constellation is a group or cluster of stars that form a shape or design. There are all kinds of constellations! Investigate Great Bear Mat, and look for a pattern of stars. Does this pattern or constellation look familiar?

Created by: Field Museum

Activity

Live Sky Show

Listen to a Live Sky Show introducing the night sky, stars, constellations, and storytelling.

Created by: Field Museum

Activity

Engage: Look to the Stars

Reflect on your own experience with stars and sky using the graphic organizer provided.

Created by: Field Museum

Activity

Story Reflection

Write down your thoughts about the story you just heard. If you would like to listen to the story again, see the Additional Resources below.

Created by: Field Museum

Activity

Explore: The Great Bear Hunt

The Great Bear Met (he/him) is a living Ancestor, beaded by Karen Ann Hoffman and on display at the Field Museum ini the exhibition Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories

Created by: Field Museum

Activity

Ancestor Acknowledgement

Karen Ann Hoffman

Created by: Field Museum