Land Grant Office Newsletter

volume 1 issue 2
DINÉ COLLEGE
Land Grant Office
Newsletter
IN THIS ISSUE . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg
Letter from the Director. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Environmental Youth Camp . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Extension Partnership Projects . . . . . . . . . .
Felix Nez Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A Student’s Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2
3
5
6
7
Student Profile:
RJ. Arthur
Page 3
Page 7
Educational fun
...and enjoyment at the 2008 Chuska Environmental Youth Camp.
Land
Grant
Office
Diné College
President
Ferlin Clark
Executive Director of
Diné Environmental Institute
Marnie Carroll
Director of Land Grant Office
Benita Litson
Grants Coordinator
Monique Yazzie
Extension Agent
Felix Nez
Graphic Designer
Derrick C. Harvey
Student Interns Spring 2009
Crystal Anthony
Raylondo Antonio
RJ Arthur
Patrick Blackwater
Derrick Bradley
Jeremy Buckinghorse
Clayton Curtis
Mikayla Etsitty
Roessel Jackson
Dionca Jim
O’Leary Yazzie
Contact:
Po Box 7B
Tsaile, AZ 86556
ph: (928)724-6941
fx: (928)724-6949
e-mail: landgrant@dinecollege.edu
http://www.dinecollege.edu
Letter from the Director
Welcome...
to the
Land Grant Office and enjoy reading
our second issue of the Land
Grant Newsletter. We are proud to
promote our programs and privileged
to share them with you. Several
new programs and projects were
established through the summer
of 2008. We are fortunate to have
partnered with the Chinle Natural
Resource Conservation Service
to establish a series of Range
Monitoring workshops and with a non
profit organization know as Seeds
of Harmony to conduct the Chuska
Youth Summer Camp. We are proud
to say that both programs were a
success and will continue throughout
2009.
We at the Land Grant office are
charged with developing workshops and programs in the best interest of
the Navajo Nation stakeholders. We conduct a variety of workshops from
gardening to rangeland management. We have been working with the Navajo
Nation Veterinary Office to allow our staff to collect and process premise
identification applications. We are also proud to announce that we are in the
second year of our 4-H youth opportunity grant.
We encourage Navajo youth between the ages of 6 to 19 years of age
to become 4-H members. You can enroll your child here at our office or any
other County Extension Office. Parents wanting to become a volunteer can
also sign up here and we will help guide you with establishing a 4-H club in
your community.
It is important for us to implement our Land Grant Goals and Mission
which is to increase the availability of community and youth development
programs throughout the Navajo Nation. We feel that our programs will help
strengthen family and traditional values. Our office is located at the Dine
College Tsaile Campus on the 2nd floor of the Ned Hatathlie Center. We
welcome you to visit us at our office to discuss concerns about your farm,
ranch, and/or livestock. We also encourage you to bring us new ideas to
develop new programs that are not readily available.
Benita Litson, Director
Land Grant Office
Cultivating Youth for a Sustainable Tomorrow
3
The 2008 Chuska Environmental Youth Camp by: Terri Lameman
“My great grandmother was Asdazni To’aheedlini. As she returned from Fort Summer, she
walked into the Tsaile Mountain valley and vowed never to leave ever again. From her generation to
my grandfather’s they herded sheep, goats, and later cattle. I would like to attend the camp for these
reasons. My ancestors and relatives today from Tsaile to Round Rock are affected by the watershed
health from the Lukachukai wash. I would like to learn how my generation might encourage any
changes in maintaining the beauty of these mountains. Last I would like to attend college in the future
and I think spending some time too in the beautiful Chuska Mountains and Canyon De Chelly to
reflect upon my grandfather’s childhood as a sheepherder and mine as a future college student”.
T
his essay was submitted by Elias Gold, a 14 year
student from Kirtland, New Mexico, who attended
the 2008 Chuska Youth Environmental Camp,
July 6-12, in Tsaile and Camp Asaayi. Here at Seeds of
Harmony, we support youth in reconnecting with the
rich traditions and values of their heritage, and cultivating
the knowledge and skills necessary for a healthy change
in their own communities. This essay also reflects our
mission to foster respect and appreciation of cultural and
natural resources among youth and their communities.
Seeds of Harmony, a nonprofit organization, in
partnership with the Land Grant Institute of Dine’ College
sponsored the first annual Chuska Youth Environmental
Camp for 27 Navajo students ages 10 – 14 with handson environmental education merged with traditional
ways of knowing and leadership building skills. The
theme of the program highlighted the significance of
water in the realms of watershed health and protection,
and weighing the cultural and natural relationships with
the plants, wildlife, air, and sky, and using the backdrop
of the Chuska Mountains as our classroom setting.
Diné College
The program was designed to foster healthy
relationships with our families, communities and
environment, which meant discussing a diverse range
of topics in both the context of Navajo and Western
teachings in: watershed health, ecology, tribal water quality
standards, permaculture, Indian land law, navigation tools
& techniques, wildlife, botany, and farming practices.
4
“Students learned the common association
combining the cultural and scientific
concepts into a working developmental
tool” Derrick C. Harvey, Camp Staff, 30.
Learning by doing had profound impacts on the
students. Using the outdoors as our classroom setting and
offering hands-on learning experiences sparked the interests
of the students. They collected water samples along Bowl
Creek and tested for chemistry and aesthetics, and identified
and described macro-invertebrate bugs and plants as part
of their assessment to determine whether they were part
of a healthy watershed. Students hiked down Twin Trails in
Canyon de Chelly to discuss the impacts created by the dam
upstream to the natural flow
regimes and farming lifestyles
in the canyon. We also met
a local family who has been
farming corn and peaches
in the canyon for many
generations. Biologists Pam
Kyselka and David Mikesic
from the Navajo Fish &
Wildlife discussed the wildlife
and habitat of the Chuskas
and provided a fun night-time
activity of catching bats using
Land Grant Office
mist nets and learning more about the positive roles they play
in a watershed and debugging the typical myths about bats.
Each morning at 6 am, whether we were staying on campus
or camping at Asaayi, the students and college mentors
walked or ran a 1-mile course to start off their day. We also
gave students recreational time in the evenings to relax and
enjoy the outdoor scenery of the mountains. The staff of the
Land Grant Office provided the students a mini-workshop
on archery and the basic techniques of holding and releasing
a bow and arrow. Whether it was playing basketball, baseball,
bowling, football, or archery we never had a dull moment
because the students always kept the staff on their toes.
Talking circles were a place and time where we shared
stories about our selves, clans, families and thoughts about the
camp. It was also a place to reflect on the cultural teachings
behind water, earth, and sky and placing those meanings into
modern society where we often are burdened by pollution,
social inequity, disease, and discrimination. It was important
for us to demonstrate this spiritual connection as daily life
on the reservation for our young people can be inundated
with drugs/alcohol, violence, and gangs and where there
are scarce or no positive outlets in their own communities
for them to turn. In turn, the Talking circles served as a safe
niche where the youth spoke freely and were strengthened
through the songs and prayers
that reminded us of our strong
innate ties to the land and water.
Overall, the program
schedule was demanding with
early morning runs to late night
journal writings, but in many
ways it challenged our young
people to think and understand
the problems associated with
the ecological health of our
communities and ways to
safeguard and restore them. It became apparent that the
youth were aware of the social and environmental issues and
needed encouragement and guidance in further understanding
their roles as present and future agents of change.
The youth we worked with this summer was a special
group that came from different rural towns and remote
communities on and near the reservation, but they all
carried a strong sense of desire and commitment to return
next year. It was a joy to watch them encounter and play at
the watering hole in Bowl Creek and the awe in their eyes
when we saw the bats up close. Their enthusiasm and humor
was infectious and reminded us why we do the work we do.
This was our first year offering the camp and next year we
envision serving more students and inviting the first group
back to start a restoration project on the reservation. These
investments often involve lots of planning and hard work but
we strongly believe that our youth are our most valuable assets
in creating change for healthier and stronger communities.
The Chuska Youth Environmental Project was made possible by generous
support from Honor the Earth, Seva Foundation, Seventh Generation Fund,
United States Department of Agriculture, and New Mexico Gear Up.
Summer 2008 Participants
Megan Badonie
Micheryl Benally
Herbert Beyale III
Stuart Campbell
Ashley Carlisle
Andrew Coolidge
Nicole Duncan
Mario Etsitty
Ryan Fulton
Nicholas Frank
Shania George
Elias Gold
Sheldon Gorman
Sophia Gorman
Tsookie Holiday
Khalid Honie
Taylor Jacob
Nicholas Jarvison
Jessica Jim
Jeffrey Jishie
Allyssa Joe
Lance Litson
Kyle Ned
Leonard Seanez
Matthew Thompson
Bryan Wilson
Arianna Yazzie
Story by Terri Lameman. She is the Executive Director of Seeds of Harmony,
an Affiliate of Seventh Generation Fund and emerging nonprofit organization
on the Navajo reservation, and can be reached at rockspire@gmail.com.
Extension Partnership
PROJECTS
5
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Diné College
Help, Where Help is Needed
First-Year Extension Agent, Felix Nez,
lends more than just a hand.
D
eep within the Chuska Mountains sits Diné College,
in a remote town named Tsaile, Arizona. Diné
College serves the Navajo Nation as their tribal
academic institution. The Land Grant Office, a subsidiary of
the college, operates as the center for community outreach
and education.
Felix Nez joined the office in the early summer of 2007.
Felix Nez went to Salish Kootenai College and the University
of Montana to receive a B.A. in Environmental Studies.
6
He is born for the Mexican Clan people from Tsaile and
raised by the Red Bottom people. His
provision is to utilize the Land Grant
Office in helping local communities
in sustainable resources management
throughout Navajoland.
One facet to his goal is creating a
system to maximize land management
in order to exercise sustainability.
With the help of Botanist, Arnold
Clifford, Felix held a series of
workshops over the summer of 2008.
The Rangeland Management series
Land Grant Office
was designed to help
ranchers to understand
the vegetation coverage
of their land and
estimate the species
that populated the land,
in order to assist with the care and management of their
livestock.
The data gathered here will then be used to relate to the
grazing needs of the rancher’s livestock herds. The rancher
can estimate the health and nutrition for breeding, eliminate
noxious plants that may harm their land or animals, and plan
for future livestock and rangeland development. The land
can also be cultivated into a farm that can benefit the family
diet and health, and personal and community economy.
In the fall of 2007, the Land Grant Office held their first
Farmer’s Market in Tsaile. To continue and create tradition,
Felix also help organize it for the fall 2008. This year’s harvest
from the demonstration farm included cucumbers, scallop
squash, pumpkin squash, zucchini squash, and onions.
The information gained from the demonstration farm is
very useful to Felix as he begins his outreach education to
surrounding schools.
He has been visiting Lukachukai Boarding School in
Lukachukai, Arizona, and meeting with their after-school
program to get them started with building their own
demonstration farm. They have built a greenhouse and are
in the planning stages of choosing the crops to plant in
spring 2009.
These programs will help
students increase their knowledge and
understanding of sustainable foods,
diet, health and nutrition, project
planning, teamwork, etc.
The 4-H initiative began here
at Diné College a little over a year
ago, and has been very productive
in bringing the youth some very
educational workshops and programs.
A Student’s Perspective
Reflection on Diné College Land Grant Office Internship
H
ello, I am Arthur, Robin Jay. I am a current
student and intern worker for the Diné CollegeLand Grant Office. In the time I have started to
the most recent presentation, I have accumulated so much
experience and knowledge of what I know and what I can
accomplish. Here it’s not about what has to be done but
“I have been able to go forth and
give my findings to the community
and the people” RJ Arthur, 25.
what you can do with unlimited ideas and the sources to
dedicate yourself to your ideas. With the office setting very
high standards for –not only experiments- but for you as well,
teaches you that everything can become accomplished. You
just need the motivation and the faith in yourself to do so.
With the office I have been able to go forth and give
my findings to the community and the people. The Land
Grant office gives us interns the opportunity to interact
In July, the University of Arizona
brought extension agents from their
programs to introduce GIS/GPS to
Navajo youth. (See page 5)
Felix is a certified 4-H archery
instructor and he hopes to get afterschool programs to participate in
shooting sports. Felix and Land Grant
intern, Jerome Jones, started things
in Rock Point, Arizona, where they
began an after-school program that
assisted the school with their archery
team training and practice.
In early 2009 Felix will begin working with the Many
Farms Elementary School after-school programs as well.
They will be learning the basic mechanics of shooting, bow
and arrow parts and maintenance, and safety. In later stages
of the programs he will be introducing the youth to the
Navajo Traditional aspects of the bow and arrow.
with not only the people of the
reservation, but of the United
States as well. When given
the opportunity to extent our
research and experiments to the
rest of society we all accepted
without hesitation. This comes
to show how much belief our
beloved College prides itself of
its own mission statement- “to
apply the Sa’ah Naaghai Bik’eh
Hozhoon principles to advance
quality student learning: Through Nitsáhákees (Thinking),
Nahat’á (Planning), Iiná (Living), and Siihasin (Assuring).”
Anyone who is willing
and has the wanting to be part
of the ‘Diné College’ inner
workings and have some effort
to show for the years you spend
here. Then I encourage you
to come be part of this office.
7
Navajo Traditional foods are
also going to be introduced this year
as a way to encourage diet, nutrition,
and to increase cultural awareness.
The application of cultural concepts
and philosophy will become a more
integral part to his extension work
with hopes of strengthening youths
overall character.
In his second year here at the
Diné College Land Grant Office,
Felix has made some great changes
and additions to the extension services that are offered. With
the network that he has established with other extension
services, things are looking positive and the amount of
education, training, and knowledge will become more
accessible to our community and create a resourceful base
for future generations.
Diné College
Land Grant Office
P.O. Box 7B
Tsaile, AZ 86556
ph: (928)724 - 6941
fax: (928)724 - 6949
landgrant@dinecollege.edu
www.dinecollege.edu
© 2008 Land Grant Office