The Indigenous Food Sovereignty Program is sponsored by the University of Nebraska– Lincoln. This program will welcome Lincoln Public School Native students onto UNL’s East Campus to engage with Native elders and UNL Extension faculty to learn how to grow their own food and establish food sovereignty for their families and communities. They will meet on Saturday mornings throughout the year to learn how to prepare, maintain, harvest and preserve the food they will grow in the Indigenous Youth Garden on East Campus. Upon completion of each season, students will receive certificates for completing the seasonal program, digital badges to showcase their skills learned during the season, and a $500 stipend.
This program is not sponsored or supervised by the Lincoln Public School District.
Winter Session
Students will meet on Saturday mornings from 9:00 – 12:00 for the winter season starting Saturday, January 7, 2023 in the Plant Sciences Building Room 280. Topics that will be addressed during the winter season are:
- Traditional Stories Focusing on Indigenous Worldviews
- Social Media – Smart Phones – iNaturalist Maps
- Landscape Design – Garden Space
- Saving Traditional Indigenous Seeds and Planting and Gathering Practices
- Starting Plants Indoors to Transplant Outdoors
- Planning the Coming Growing Season's Garden, including Layout and Crop Rotation
- Procurement of Seeds
- Bee Hotels/Hives – Honey and Solitary Bees
- UNL Student Environmental Presentations (Sustain)
- Health and Nutrition Presentations
- College Advisement
- Journaling – Growing with the Garden
Through this program, students will:
- Share traditional stories focusing on Indigenous worldviews
- Research, gather and save traditional Indigenous seeds
- Create a social media outlet that showcases their work
- Reflect on soils, plants, insects, weather and pollinators through journaling
- Plan and map a landscape design for their garden
- Prepare, maintain, harvest and preserve food grown in the garden/greenhouse
- Identify and work with a UNL college advisor/mentor