UNIT 1 • FREE

SD Tribal Nations

Learn about South Dakota's 9 sovereign Tribal nations - the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota peoples of the Oceti Sakowin - while building your first website with HTML basics. This unit introduces digital citizenship, respectful online research, and the foundations of web development.

⏱️ 7 Stages
📱 Beginner
🎯 45-60 min per stage
💻 HTML Basics

What You'll Learn

In this unit, you'll discover South Dakota's Tribal nations while learning the building blocks of every website. You'll create your first web page about the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota communities of the Oceti Sakowin - the Seven Council Fires - who have called this land home since time immemorial. The biggest new concept: HTML, the markup language that every website is built with. An HTML tag is an instruction to the browser, telling it what kind of content it is looking at.

By the end of this unit, you'll be able to say "I can..."

  • Identify and describe South Dakota's 9 federally recognized Tribal nations
  • Understand the difference between Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota communities
  • Understand the meaning of Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires)
  • Practice digital citizenship and respectful online research
  • Create a basic HTML web page structure
  • Use semantic HTML elements to organize information
  • Add <h1>, <p>, and <ul> elements to a webpage
  • Understand how websites are built with code

What You'll Build

You'll create a website showcasing South Dakota's Tribal nations, with sections for both Lakota and Dakota/Nakota communities. Your website will include Tribal names, locations, and respectful information about each nation's history and present-day contributions.

The 7 Stages

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5 Stage 6 Stage 7
Start Stage 1 →

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Sources

All cultural, historical, and Tribal nation content in this unit is grounded in reputable sources. We prioritize official Tribal nation websites, state and federal government resources, and Native-authored publications. If you are an educator or student who wants to explore further, each source below is a trustworthy starting point.

Official & Tribal Nation Sources

Academic & Educational Sources

Digital Citizenship

Educational Standards

This unit aligns with national computer science and technology standards as well as state-level social studies and media arts standards. You are viewing this unit as a South Dakota student or educator - the South Dakota standards are expanded below. All other state standards are also available.

  • OSEU.SS.H.1, Tribal Nations as Sovereign Governments (All Grades): Students will understand that Indigenous peoples of North America are organized into sovereign Tribal nations with distinct histories, governance structures, and legal standing under federal law. (The unit introduces all 9 SD Tribal nations not as historical peoples but as present-day sovereign governments. Students research each nation using official Tribal nation websites and state government sources, building the foundational understanding that these are governments - with digital presences, elected leadership, and treaty-protected rights - before writing a single line of HTML.)
  • OSEU.SS.G.1, Self-Determination and Tribal Governance (All Grades): Students will understand that Tribal nations exercise inherent sovereignty and self-determination in their political, cultural, and community affairs. (Choosing to build a webpage that accurately represents a Tribal nation is itself a small act in a larger tradition of Indigenous self-representation. Students are introduced to the idea that how a nation is described online matters, and that their role as a developer includes a responsibility to represent that information with accuracy and respect.)
  • OSEU.ELA.W.1, Research Writing for a Public Audience (All Grades): Students will produce clear and purposeful writing grounded in verified sources, appropriate to task and audience. (The descriptions students write for each Tribal nation on their webpage must come from official sources: Tribal nation websites, the SD Tribal Relations office, and state government databases. Students are writing for a public audience on a live web page, which raises the stakes of accuracy beyond a classroom assignment.)
  • CSTA 2-IC-21 (Grades 6-8): Discuss issues of bias and accessibility in the design of existing technologies. (Students research and represent Tribal nation information on a real webpage, practicing inclusive and culturally respectful representation from the very first lesson in the curriculum.)
  • ISTE 1.3, Knowledge Constructor: Critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts, and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others. (Students use official Tribal nation websites, state government databases, and Native-authored publications to research South Dakota's 9 Tribes, building the habit of prioritizing primary and verified sources from day one.)
  • ISTE 1.6, Creative Communicator: Communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats, and digital media appropriate to their goals. (Students create and publish their first real webpage, making intentional choices about how to present Tribal nation information for a real public audience.)
  • OSEU Standard 1.1 (All Grades): Understand the history and contemporary status of the Oceti Sakowin. (Unit 1 introduces all 9 SD Tribal nations as the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota peoples of the Oceti Sakowin. Students learn that these nations share a common heritage as the Seven Council Fires while each maintaining distinct sovereignty, governance, and identity.)
  • OSEU Standard 2.1 (All Grades): Understand the concept of sovereignty as it applies to the Oceti Sakowin and other Indigenous peoples. (Every Tribal nation introduced in this unit is a federally recognized sovereign government. Understanding sovereignty is foundational to representing Tribal nations accurately and respectfully online, and to understanding why how we build websites about these nations matters.)
  • SD CS 3-5.AP.01 (Grades 3-5): Model daily processes using a sequence of steps and find multiple representations of a problem. (Writing HTML tags in the correct sequence to produce a structured webpage introduces students to the concept of sequential instructions, the foundation of all programming.)
  • SD CS 6-8.IC.01 (Grades 6-8): Compare tradeoffs associated with computing technologies that affect people's everyday activities and career options in South Dakota and the world, as well as urban, rural, and reservation communities. (This standard explicitly names reservation communities. Students consider what it means for Tribal nations to maintain a web presence and how digital access shapes sovereign communication and visibility.)
  • MN Social Studies 6.4.18.1 (Grade 6): Describe how Dakota and Anishinaabe people today narrate their own history, including seasonal lifeways in the pre-contact period. (The unit covers Dakota peoples whose communities are present across the broader region including Minnesota, and introduces students to the distinction between Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota communities.)
  • MN ELA 6.3.3.2 / 7.3.3.2 / 8.3.3.2 (Grades 6, 7, 8): Create and share a multimedia or digital communication, choosing tools to meet the task, purpose, and audience, demonstrating understanding of digital footprint. (Students publish their first complete webpage as a unit deliverable, a public act of digital communication grounded in research about Tribal nations.)
  • MN Media Arts 2.8.2.3.1 (Grade 8): Create media artworks using transdisciplinary or transmedia production to express emotion and meaning, including simple web page design considering positioning with multimodal perception. (This is the only MN K-12 standard that explicitly names web page design as a learning example. Unit 1 is students' first exposure to building that kind of media artifact.)
  • ND CS 5.DD.1 / 6.DD.1 / 7.DD.1 / 8.DD.1 (Grades 5-8): Create and evaluate algorithms using pseudocode, flowcharts, or other visual tools. (HTML is a structured, precise language: students write tags in a defined order, open and close them correctly, and nest elements inside one another. Understanding this structure is an introduction to algorithmic thinking.)
  • ND CS 6.S.1 / 7.S.1 / 8.S.1 (Grades 6-8): Examine the positive and negative impacts of technology on how people live, work, and interact, including considerations of equitable access. (Students consider what it means for a Tribal nation to have or lack a strong web presence, connecting computing to Tribal sovereignty and digital equity from the first unit.)
  • ND Indigenous Language Standard 2.1 (All Grades): Learners investigate, explain, and reflect on the relationship of practices to the customs, traditions, and perspectives of the cultures studied. (The unit covers Tribal nations of the Oceti Sakowin whose communities extend across both South Dakota and North Dakota, including Standing Rock Sioux Tribe which spans both states.)