ETHNOBOTANY The Study of plants and how they

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. Aaaaah!!!!

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