Humboldt and San Diego Office of Education are collaborating to develop a Native American curriculum for California schools

California has selected Humboldt, San Diego, and Orange Counties to create four new curriculums for the California education system to foster. Humboldt and San Diego Office of Education is developing the Native American Studies Model Curriculum (NASMC). 

“These lessons will be part of a web-based platform that UC Davis is hosting, but it would be officially the state of California’s history and social science history project,” said Maggie Peters, the Native American Studies Model Curriculum Learning Specialist. “We want to give educators an experience that they get to co-learn with their students.”

This curriculum has been in development for almost two years, the third year will be focused on phase three which includes curriculum refinement, publishing and professional learning. The goal is to roll this out fall of 2025.  

The NASMC curriculum will be taught to all students between kindergarten through 12 grade. The content of the lessons will be focused on the grade levels and taught in a way that best suits each grade.

“We would probably think about themes that would involve origin stories and animals and things that are in the land, such as foods and different types of plants,” Peters said. “And as they get closer to eighth grade, it would go more into government and what does it mean to be a sovereign nation and perhaps to like compare contrasts with like constitutions and that sort of thing. Then, the ethnic studies requirement also has a Native American studies component. So all of the lessons we hope to surface at the high school level can be integrated into the ethnic studies courses.”

There are virtual public listening sessions to learn more about the curriculum, brainstorm ideas, and partner with the organizers. The next public listening session is December 12 starting at noon and another session at 4 p.m. People must register to join the Zoom meeting at https://my.hcoe.net/native-american-studies-model-curriculum.