Studying Louisiana’s historic sites with elementary students is an excellent way to address the Louisiana Content Standards and Benchmarks through interdisciplinary units, according to Debbie Buco, a teacher of talented and gifted students at Galvez Primary School in Ascension Parish. Having been involved in Heritage Education – Louisiana for several years, Debbie has been responsible for some of the program’s most creative classroom products.
One of her students’ favorite projects is building a life-sized palmetto hut from willow branches and palmetto leaves. Archeologists believe that the Native American people of Poverty Point and other sites may have lived in this type of structure.
“Students are introduced to geometry basics such as radius, diameter, area and circumference of a circle as they create a 7-foot-diameter hut using a string and pencil compass,” she said. “Louisiana Indians used the natural resources at hand to build their dwellings. It is important that students recognize the uniqueness of our Louisiana culture and not be drawn into the Indian stereotype of paper tepees at Thanksgiving. Native peoples in our state never lived in tepees like the Plains Indians. Learners quickly grasp social studies concepts and are able to use the hut for writing lessons and as a reading center.”