Each November, the United States recognizes and celebrates Native American Heritage Month. Since 1990, our nation has used this month to explore and remember the history, contributions, and culture of the Indigenous peoples and communities that bring diversity to our country.

To help you bring diversity, history, and culture together in your classroom, we’re sharing 16 Native American Heritage Month lesson plans for ELA, social studies, and science that you can use to supplement your core curriculum or create a brand new Heritage Month-themed activity.

• Teach about Native American history and Indigenous culture in social studies
• Read stories and poetry from an Indigenous perspective
• See how Native American scientists paved the way for great discoveries

[Teach about Native American history and Indigenous culture in social studies](id-ss)

Indigenous people have influenced and shaped every aspect of American culture, like art, food, language, and environmental conservation. With Newsela Social Studies and our Celebrating Native American Heritage Month text sets, you can introduce students to Indigenous peoples and their stories.

Compare and contrast Native American cultures by region

Native American tribes in different parts of North America lead different lifestyles depending on the climate or available resources. Teach students about the nuances of groups in the following regions:

• East Coast
• Central
• West Coast
• Alaskan and Hawaiian

Teach students about celebrating Indigenous culture and preserving traditions

Each Indigenous culture is unique in its ideas, beliefs, and customs. Highlight these differences (and their similarities, too!) with the following activities:

• Explore how students in California’s public high schools can learn the Yurok language as part of their studies.
• See how Native American women ensure museums accurately depict their culture in historical exhibits.
• Use primary sources to see how several cities across the United States changed from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day to honor Native Americans and their heritage.

Meet influential and interesting Native Americans throughout history

Indigenous people have influenced many of the most pivotal moments in American history. Explore some of their most notable contributions with your students:

• See how the Mohawk Nation helped build some of New York City’s most iconic buildings.
• Discover how Native languages helped the U.S. win World War II in the Pacific.
• Learn more about chef Sean Sherman, a Sioux community member trying to rediscover and share Indigenous cuisine.

Understand the causes behind Indigenous activism

Members of many Indigenous cultures have fought for their rights for decades and continue to do so today. Teach students about their causes and what these activists do to make their voices heard.

• Show your class a video about Zitkála-Šá—an activist, author, and educator—who fought against the Americanization of Native nations at the turn of the 20th century.
• Read an article about how Indigenous Americans fight every 10 years to be counted correctly in the U.S. census.
• Discover how Native Americans in Utah are fighting back against voter suppression and discrimination to gain political power.

Learn more about Native American leaders and trailblazers across the country

Indigenous people have contributed to our collective culture, including politics, education, and athletics. Help students explore their successes in these areas and more.

• Have students read about Lynn Malerba, the first Native American Treasurer of the United States.
• Show a video about Jim Thorpe, a Native American Olympic hero and the only athlete to play pro baseball, football, and basketball, rather than committing to just one sport.
• Learn about Chuck Sams III, the first Indigenous director of the National Park Service, and how his culture influences his role.

Reflect on Native American experiences of colonization

The arrival of Europeans had a profound impact on Native American populations, who likely didn’t know what to think about or expect when these new people began to colonize their land. Use our Native American Experiences of Colonization unit to explore subtopics of this issue in greater detail, like:

• Migration and settlement of Native American lands
• Diversity of Native American societies
• Native government systems
• Native American trade and treaties with Europeans
• Colonial violence and native resistance

See the impact that westward expansion had on Native Americans

While westward expansion may have meant more money and land for settlers, it meant the opposite for Indigenous peoples who had occupied those spaces first. Teach students about the impact that westward expansion had on Native American groups with resources like:

• A historical explainer about The Trail of Tears and how the Cherokee Nation protested against the New-Echota Treaty.
• An opinion article examining how the Supreme Court’s ruling in Murphy v. Carpenter could have resulted in the largest restoration of tribal jurisdiction over Native land in U.S. history.
• An article that examines the process of building the Transcontinental Railroad and how it devastated Native American tribes and the country’s buffalo populations.

Explore primary sources from Native American and Indigenous voices

Primary sources can help students encounter diverse first-person perspectives on various topics and issues. You can use these and other primary sources to amplify Indigenous perspectives and voices in your classroom:

• An excerpt from Captain John Smith’s history of his exchange with Powhatan, the chief leader of Native American tribes in the Chesapeake region of the United States.
• The full text of the Iroquois Constitution, also known as the Great Law of Peace.
• The full text of Oneida writer and activist Laura Cornelius Kellogg’s 1913 speech to the Society of American Indians (SAI) about the importance of Indigenous education.

Learn more about Native American participation in the Seven Years' War

The Seven Years’ War, also known as the French and Indian War, ended 12 years before the American Revolution began. Indigenous people played a significant role in the battles of this war and the strategies behind them. Teach students about how their influence impacted the outcome of the war.

• View a map of the war's battles, forts, and victories.
• Read the full text of a speech by Chief Minavavana from 1761, where he warned the British against taking Indigenous land.
• Read an article about the relationship between France and Native Americans in North America and how French, Spanish, and English settlers took different approaches to colonization.

Discover the roles Indigenous peoples played in the American Revolution

Unlike during the Seven Years’ War, many Native Americans attempted to stay neutral at the start of the conflict between Britain and the colonists. Many of them ended up siding with the British because they perceived colonial independence as a threat to their way of life.

• Review how the goals, methods, and geographic interests of the European countries that attempted to colonize North America shaped Native American history.
• Watch an interactive video about the Africans and Native Americans who fought in the American Revolution.
• Read about how the American Revolution is also considered the Native American’s War of Independence, as they fought to defend their freedom, land, and beliefs from the colonists.

[Read stories and poetry from an Indigenous perspective](id-ela)

Explore Native American Heritage Month through fiction and poetry in your ELA classes:

Experience Indigenous poetry

Introduce students to rhyme and verse with a collection of poems by Native American writers, including:

• “Autumn” by Alexander Posey
• “A Song of a Navajo Weaver” by Bertrand N.O. Walker
• “Grace” by Joy Harjo
• “Changing Is Not Vanishing” by Carlos Montezuma
• “America, I Sing Back” by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

Or, see how Native American poetry connects to cultural history with a lesson on Denise Lajimodiere, an Ojibwe woman and North Dakota’s first Indigenous state poet laureate.

Build background knowledge with Native American novels

Discover true stories and fictional tales based on real-life experiences of Indigenous authors in these and other novel studies:

• “Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code: A Navajo Code Talker’s Story” by Joseph Bruchac
• “The Trail of Tears” by Joseph Bruchac
• “The Birchbark House” by Louise Erdrich
• “Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie
• “There There” by Tommy Orange

Discover Native American creation myths

Many cultures and religions have creation stories to explain how we came to exist on Earth and explain the world around us. Develop a lesson around these stories from different Native American cultures:

• Read “The Great Turtle,” an Iroquois origin story.
• Read “How Grandmother Spider Brought Fire,” a Choctaw origin story.
• Extend the lesson by having students create a storyboard that depicts the main events in one of the creation stories.

Meet Native American storytellers

Indigenous people have made significant contributions to the arts. Their creative works help people in other Indigenous communities see their lived experiences in art, and people outside of those communities reflect and understand. Introduce your students to some of them during this Heritage Month:

• Explore projects from Indigenous filmmakers who are telling their stories on the big screen.
• Meet Indigenous comic book store owner Lee Francis IV and discover what makes the books he sells so special.
• Discover the importance of oral storytelling in Ojibwe spiritual tradition and how it keeps the tribe’s worldviews, teachings, and religious experiences alive.

Try an Indigenous paired text activity

Paired text activities help students build background knowledge and vocabulary more quickly by reading multiple texts on similar topics. Try one of our paired text sets for Native American Heritage Month:

• “How the Bear Clan Learned to Heal” and food as medicine
• “A Time of Troubles” and the fight at Standing Rock
• “How Grandmother Spider Brought Fire” and origin stories

[See how Native American scientists paved the way for great discoveries](id-sci)

Help students see the impact Native Americans have had on the scientific community with articles, videos, and other content for your science classes:

Discover Indigenous representations in science

From outer space to climate change to conservation, Indigenous people have immensely contributed to exploring and protecting our world. Introduce students to some of their most significant achievements.

• Explore the Lakota Sioux’s spiritual connection to the sun and stars and how the orientation of the cosmos influences their cultural ceremonies.
• Learn about the career of Nicole Aunapu Mann, the first Indigenous woman in space.
• Find out why bison have cultural significance to the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes and see what they’re doing to preserve and restore herds of the animals in their areas.

Level up your lessons with Newsela’s subject products

We hope that engaging your students with content curated for Native American Heritage Month helps them recognize Indigenous people's impact on our world today. But Newsela’s products have even more great content, interactive activities, and assessment tools you can use all year.

If you’re not a Newsela customer, sign up for Newsela Lite for free. Then, you can start your 45-day trial of our premium content to access everything you need to teach about nearly any Heritage Month, historical event, or holiday in your classroom.