News and Updates

Iowa Native Spaces

On June 3, 2017, Vantage Point historian Eric Zimmer traveled to the Meskwaki Nation in central Iowa for a teacher workshop called “Iowa Native Spaces: Teaching Back to Erasures.”
Zimmer presented alongside Meskwaki Settlement School teacher Leah Slick-Driscoll and Lance Foster, the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. Each presentation focused on Midwestern Native histories in the 19th and 20th centuries, with Zimmer including a special focus on the concepts of tribal sovereignty and self-determination.
Per the program’s website, the workshop provided secondary educators from across Iowa “with professional development on history, culture, resistance, and contemporary issues in Iowa from indigenous perspectives. Sessions will be led by content area experts and education faculty at the University of Iowa and the Meskwaki Settlement School and will include time to design lesson plans and curriculum that integrate indigenous perspectives and align with the Iowa Core State Standards. Teachers will be responsible for completing a curriculum project based on their respective content area and grade level responsibilities.”