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UNIT 5

Traditional Lifeways

Before roads and grocery stores, Tribal nations built entire systems for food, travel, and trade. Build a single-page website that tells that story.

⏱️ 7 Stages
🌿 Early Intermediate
🎯 45–60 min per stage
🔗 Semantic HTML + CSS Nav

The Big Idea

Food gathering, buffalo lifeways, and trade networks aren't just history. They're evidence of sophisticated systems developed over thousands of years. This unit gives you the tools to present that story the way it deserves - as a well-designed, navigable website with real structure.

The new concept is semantic HTML - tags that give your content meaning, not just structure. Tags like nav, section, article, and main tell the browser what each part of your page is for. You'll also build a sticky navigation bar that stays at the top of the screen as you scroll.

Click a nav link and the page scrolls to that section. It happens automatically once you know the technique. By the end, your page feels like a real editorial website.

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

  • Use semantic HTML tags that describe what content means
  • Build a navigation bar that sticks to the top as you scroll
  • Create anchor links that jump to specific sections of the page
  • Structure content into clear sections with headings and articles
  • Build a single-page website that reads like a real publication

What You'll Build

A single-page website about Traditional Lifeways - food gathering, buffalo traditions, and trade.

A sticky nav at the top with three links. Each one scrolls down to its section. Three sections of research you write, laid out cleanly with semantic HTML.

This is the kind of site you'd be proud to show someone.

You've built 4 websites. You're not a beginner anymore.

Your learning path

The 7 Stages

STAGE 1 The Page Skeleton Semantic HTML structure STAGE 2 The Navigation Bar Nav links + styling STAGE 3 Sticky Navigation position: sticky scroll STAGE 4 Food Gathering Section content + layout STAGE 5 Buffalo Lifeways Images + section design STAGE 6 Trade and Travel Final section + footer STAGE 7 Make It Your Own Customize your lifeways site
Let's Begin

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Sources

All cultural, historical, and traditional content in this unit is grounded in reputable sources. We prioritize official Tribal nation websites, state and federal government resources, and Native-authored or academically reviewed 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

Cultural Protocols: Sacred vs. Shareable Knowledge

Educational Standards

This unit aligns with national computer science and technology standards as well as state-level social studies, ELA, and Indigenous knowledge standards. Select your state below to see the relevant standards for your classroom.

  • OSEU.SS.C.1, Communal Stewardship of Land and Natural Resources (All Grades): Students will understand that Tribal nations hold relationships to land, animals, and natural resources that are grounded in cultural values of communal stewardship, reciprocity, and non-waste. (The buffalo section is the clearest example: the non-waste principle - using every part of the animal - is not presented as a historical curiosity but as an expression of a worldview where relationships between humans and the natural world carry moral weight. Students research and represent this principle in the language of their own webpage section, which requires them to engage with it substantively rather than passively receive it.)
  • OSEU.ELA.W.1, Research Writing Using Tribal Nation Sources (All Grades): Students will produce research-based writing grounded in verified sources, prioritizing official Tribal nation websites and Native-authored educational material over general web searches. (The written descriptions for each section of the traditional lifeways website - food gathering, buffalo, trade - are student-authored text drawn from the sources provided. Students are not summarizing a textbook. They are reading primary and community-authored sources and rendering that knowledge in their own words for a public audience on a live webpage.)
  • CSTA 2-AP-13 (Grades 6-8): Decompose problems and subproblems into parts to facilitate the design, implementation, and review of programs. (Students decompose a full website into distinct semantic sections, header, navigation, three content sections, footer, each requiring its own HTML structure, content, and CSS rules. This decomposition principle is applied stage by stage across the unit.)
  • CSTA 2-AP-17 (Grades 6-8): Systematically test and refine programs using a range of test cases. (Students test anchor navigation links at each stage to confirm they scroll to the correct section, building the habit of verifying that links resolve correctly before moving to the next stage.)
  • 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 structure and publish cultural knowledge about Tribal lifeways as a navigable, publicly shareable webpage, making deliberate choices about how to present each section for a general audience.)
  • ISTE 6d, Global Collaborator: Explore local and global issues and use collaborative technologies to work with others to investigate solutions. (Students research the traditional lifeways of Tribal nations across three states and represent that knowledge on a structured web page, connecting local Indigenous knowledge to a globally accessible medium.)
  • MN Social Studies 2.4.18.1 (Grade 2): Describe the daily life of the Dakota and Anishinaabe in Minnesota, including food, shelter, and clothing, before and after European contact. (This standard names the exact content of the unit's three sections: food gathering, lifeways (including shelter and clothing from the buffalo), and trade and travel. Cited here at the Grade 2 level as foundational knowledge; the unit extends it to a Grade 5-8 production context.)
  • 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. (Students use sources from Tribal nation websites, MNHS, and NDStudies to research and represent Dakota and Anishinaabe lifeways in their own words, centering Tribal narration over outside interpretation.)
  • MN ELA 5.1.4.4 (Grade 5): Describe the overall structure of a text, distinguishing among narration, description, exposition, and argument, and identify structural elements in informational texts. (Students apply the same structural logic to their webpage: each section is expository, organized with a heading, introductory context, and supporting details. The semantic HTML structure directly mirrors informational text structure.)
  • 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. Students build a multimodal single-page site with structured navigation, text, and visual layout choices.)
  • MN Social Studies 9.4.19.7 (Grades 9-12): Identify multiple Indigenous concepts of boundary-making and relationship-building with the environment through economic, political, and kinship systems. (The food gathering and trade sections show how Ojibwe wild rice harvest territories, Dakota buffalo ranges, and MHA Nation trade village networks are all shaped by Indigenous relationships with the land. Students represent these concepts directly in their webpage content.)
  • MN Social Studies 9.4.21.9 (Grades 9-12): Describe ways Indigenous peoples managed the environment before European colonialism. (All three content sections of the unit address environmental management: the controlled harvesting of wild rice, the seasonal buffalo hunt and full use of every part of the animal, and the trade networks that connected people to regional resources. Students source this content from Tribal nation websites and Native-authored materials.)
  • MN Social Studies 9.4.20.7 (Grades 9-12): Interpret a variety of historical sources including oral narratives to develop a nuanced understanding of Indigenous history. (The unit's source tier policy prioritizes official Tribal nation websites and Native-authored publications over secondary accounts. Students encounter oral-tradition-based knowledge directly rather than through outside interpretation, which is the practice this standard develops.)
  • MN Social Studies 9.4.22.7 (Grades 9-12): Examine the survival of Indigenous nations and how Indigenous people have contested narratives of erasure. (Publishing a webpage that centers Dakota, Lakota, Nakota, Ojibwe, and MHA Nation cultural knowledge in students' own words is an act of counter-narrative. This standard names exactly what the unit is asking students to do: represent Indigenous peoples as living, present, and historically continuous.)
  • MN ELA 9.2.5.1 (Grades 9-10): Write to inform or explain, conveying understanding of diverse perspectives including Dakota and Anishinaabe perspectives. (Students write all three sections of their webpage for a public audience, using Dakota and Anishinaabe sources to ground their explanations. The standard names these specific nations, directly matching the unit's content focus.)
  • MN ELA 9.3.3.2 / 10.3.3.2 / 11.3.3.2 (Grades 9-12): Create and share a piece of digital work for a specific purpose and audience, demonstrating understanding of digital footprint and responsible publishing. (Students publish a complete single-page website that represents Indigenous lifeways for a public audience. The standard applies across all three high school grade bands and matches the act of designing, coding, and launching the unit project.)
  • ND CS 5.DD.2 / 6.DD.2 / 7.DD.2 / 8.DD.2 (Grades 5-8): Create an algorithm to solve a problem using multiple coding patterns, including loops, conditionals, functions, or variables. (Students build a full webpage structure algorithmically: defining the page skeleton, adding semantic sections in sequence, writing CSS navigation rules, and testing anchor links. Each stage follows a deliberate sequence of additions that builds toward the complete project.)
  • 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 to publish Indigenous cultural knowledge on the public web: who can access it, who benefits, and what the limits of that sharing should be. The unit's cultural protocols discussion directly addresses this standard.)
  • ND CS 6.E.2 / 7.E.2 / 8.E.2 (Grades 6-8): Evaluate information sources to identify bias and determine reliability. (Students research buffalo lifeways, food gathering, and trade traditions from a tiered source list prioritizing official Tribal nation websites, state education resources, and Native-authored or Smithsonian-curated materials. Source evaluation is built into the research stage of the 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 three content sections of the site examine the practices of Dakota, Lakota, Nakota, Ojibwe, and MHA Nation peoples and connect each practice to the cultural values and seasonal knowledge systems behind it.)
  • ND Indigenous Language Standard 2.2 (All Grades): Learners investigate, explain, and reflect on the relationship of products to the customs, traditions, and perspectives of the cultures studied. (The webpage itself is a cultural product. Students analyze and represent the cultural products of Indigenous peoples, food systems, tools made from the buffalo, trade goods, and reflect on what those products reveal about worldview and relationship to the land.)

Note: This unit also aligns with the North Dakota Native American Essential Understandings (2015), which directly addresses Dakota, Lakota, and Ojibwe/Anishinaabe cultural knowledge, food systems, and traditional practices. That alignment will be added in a future update.

  • OSEU Standard 1.3 (All Grades): Describe traditional and contemporary Oceti Sakowin perspectives on communal stewardship of land and natural resources, including flora, fauna, geographic, and sacred features. (The food gathering and buffalo lifeways sections are grounded in the Oceti Sakowin relationship with land, animals, and natural resources. Every part of the buffalo being used reflects a worldview of non-waste and communal stewardship that this standard is designed to address.)
  • OSEU Standard 3.5 (All Grades): Identify how Oceti Sakowin sacred sites, creation stories, and star knowledge are connected and how they relate to each other. (The trade and travel section addresses seasonal movement and ceremony. Trade routes were not purely economic; they followed ceremonial cycles tied to the land, reinforcing the connections between geography, knowledge systems, and cultural practice that this standard highlights.)
  • OSEU Standard 5.1 (All Grades): Understand and identify oral tradition as a primary source. Suggested approach includes creating a personal Winter Count. (Students research traditional lifeways using sources that prioritize Indigenous narration. The final stage asks students to represent their own community's knowledge on a webpage, positioning their own experience as a valid and primary source alongside published references.)
  • SD CS 6-8.AP.03 (Grades 6-8): Design and iteratively develop programs that combine control structures, including nested loops and compound conditionals. (The anchor navigation system and semantic page structure are designed and tested iteratively across the unit, with each stage adding a new component and requiring students to verify the whole page still functions correctly.)
  • SD CS 3-5.AP.03 (Grades 3-5): Create programs that include sequences, events, loops, and conditionals. (For grade 5 students, this standard covers sequential program construction, directly met by the stage-by-stage build of the complete webpage, where each addition follows logically from the previous.)
  • 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. Publishing traditional lifeways knowledge as a web resource sits at the intersection of computing technology and the cultural preservation needs of SD Tribal communities.)