The Water Walker is an inspirational book that can be shared with students in any grade. This book was written and beautifully illustrated by Joanne Robertson.
This book tells the true story of the journey of an amazing Anishinaabe woman named Josephine Mandamin. We learn about her quest to inspire others to protect the water and understand the importance of taking care of the water.
Photo: www.motherearthwaterwalk.com
Here are some ways you can use this book in your classroom as it has many curriculum connections.
Building A Community and Honouring Identity
There are lots of local connections to this story. The Water Walkers came to visit and pray for the St. Clair River two years ago. A Detroit News story can be found here:
This video is very relevant because it includes interviews with water walkers from Bkejwanong (Walpole Island). Share this video with your class and find Bkejwanong on a map. Did you know that Bkejwanong is a delta and is actually made up of 6 Islands? Water is incredibly important to the people and wildlife living there. Can your class find out why?
A teacher in Thunder Bay is encouraging teachers and students to step up and join the Junior Water Walkers.
Language: Reading, Writing and Oral Communication, Media
The Water Walker can be used as a mentor text for writing as it uses a strong voice that uses authentic, natural language and striking word choice.
This is a great article from the ETFO Voice magazine about 13-year-old Autumn Peltier, a Water Warrior. It shares her point of view and demonstrates a strong voice. Autumn is a young person with a story and a voice that many students can be inspired by.
The Water Walker can lead to conversations around the boil water advisories on First Nations in Canada
The following can be shared and discussed with your students to initiate conversations and generate questions about water crisis on First Nations.
Science
Looking at the Science Curriculum across the grades, this book would be an excellent conversation starter on stewardship, human impacts on the environment, biodiversity, controlling human impacts on the environment, environmental impacts of a system, and water systems.
It partners very well with the Grade 8 Science Strand of Water Systems:
Social Studies
Investigations may spark Social Studies or Geography inquiry while including Indigenous perspectives. Refer to the revised SSHG curriculum for examples and prompts (found in the brackets).
Strand B. People and Environments
Grade 1: The Local Community
Grade 2: Global Communities
Grade 3: Living and Working in Ontario
Grade 4: Political and Physical Regions of Canada
Grade 5: The Role of Government and Responsible Citizenship
Grade 6: Canada’s Interactions with the Global Community
Grade 7: Physical Patterns in a Changing World
Natural Resources around the World: Use and Sustainability
Grade 8: Global Settlement: Patterns and Sustainability
Global Inequalities: Economic Development and Quality of Life
.Here are some examples inspired by educators.
A teacher in Grade 6 has been able to find global connections to water issues. She talked to her students about water issues in First Nations in Canada and connected them to the issues related to water people in Haiti experience. This was all introduced by a discussion around the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child which states: All children have the right to clean water.
Mapping Skills:
Students could go to the Water Walker website http://www.motherearthwaterwalk.com/
and map out the walks the Water Walkers have traveled in years past. Students could use Google Street view to see some of the areas the Walkers traveled. They could also use Google to see the First Nations where there are boil water advisories.
Inquiry Questions Directly from the Curriculum
For example, Grade 4 Social Studies:
People and Environments: Political and Physical Regions of Canada B1 and B2
Assess some key ways in which industrial development and the natural environment affect each other.
Investigate some issues and challenges associated with balancing human needs/wants and activities with environmental stewardship.
The Framing Questions for this expectation would allow for some great inquiry:
What impact can human activities have on the natural environment?
What impact can human activities have on the natural environment?
Why is it important to consider the long-term impact of human activities?
Where to Next?
There are so many ways to use this book in your classroom, I could go on for pages and pages about it! If you are using this book in your classroom, please share the great things your students are doing to learn more about the water and what they are doing to take care of our water.
To keep the learning going, investigate the curriculum, for ways to include the Indigenous perspective on other environmental or social issues.
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