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UNIT 9

Planting for Seven Generations

Food sovereignty is the right to decide what you grow, what you eat, and how food moves through your community. Build a resource page about it - and write your first JavaScript.

⏱️ 7 Stages
🌿 Intermediate
🎯 45-60 min per stage
⚡ Forms + JavaScript

The Big Idea

Native food sovereignty isn't just about agriculture. It's about reconnecting to seeds that have been cultivated for centuries, rebuilding food systems that colonization tried to destroy, and deciding who gets to define what your community eats. That's worth a whole website.

On the coding side, this unit introduces HTML forms - the technology behind every input field, dropdown, and submit button on the internet. You'll build a community recipe submission form. When someone fills it in and hits submit, something happens on the page. That 'something' is your first JavaScript.

JavaScript is the language that makes websites respond. You've been building pages that look good. Now you'll build one that does something. It's a big step - and you're ready for it.

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

  • Build an HTML form with input fields, dropdowns, and a submit button
  • Write your first JavaScript to make a page respond to a user action
  • Use CSS focus styles so form fields look polished when clicked
  • Add CSS transitions so interactions feel smooth
  • Research and write about food sovereignty for your community

What You'll Build

A food sovereignty resource page - hero section, pillars, recipe cards, and a working form.

The form is the star. Fill it out and hit submit - and the page responds. That's JavaScript doing its job.

You researched the content. You built the form. You wrote the code that makes it work.

Hero Your research intro
The Pillars Food sovereignty concepts
Recipes Three starter dishes
Submit a Recipe HTML form + CSS focus

Eight websites in. You're about to write your first JavaScript.

Your learning path

The 7 Stages

STAGE 1 Hero and Food Sovereignty Page structure + hero STAGE 2 Hero Image + Pillars Image + pillar section STAGE 3 Recipe Cards Card grid layout STAGE 4 The Community Form HTML form elements STAGE 5 Your First JavaScript addEventListener + toggle STAGE 6 Polish Layout + spacing STAGE 7 CSS Transitions Smooth hover animations
Let's Begin

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Sources

The food sovereignty content in this unit draws from Indigenous-led food organizations, Native chefs and authors, and Tribal nation resources. Food sovereignty is an active, ongoing movement across Native communities in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. These sources represent that work as it is happening today.

Indigenous-Led Food Organizations

Native Authorship

Food Sovereignty Concepts & Policy

Educational Standards

This unit aligns with computer science, health and nutrition, social studies, and Indigenous cultural standards across MN, ND, and SD. Click a panel to expand.

  • OSEU.SS.C.1, Food Sovereignty as Cultural and Political Practice (All Grades): Students will understand that Indigenous food systems are expressions of cultural identity, governance, and self-determination - and that food sovereignty is an active political framework through which Tribal nations assert their right to define and protect those systems. (The unit frames food sovereignty not as historical practice but as a live political and cultural issue. Students research current food sovereignty initiatives by Tribal nations in their region, represent them on their website, and connect traditional food knowledge to the contemporary food sovereignty movement through their written content.)
  • OSEU.SS.H.2, Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Community Ownership (All Grades): Students will understand that self-determination includes the right of Tribal nations and communities to govern, protect, and benefit from data about their own peoples and practices. (The community recipe submission form students build in Stage 6 is not just a JavaScript exercise. Students are asked to consider: who owns the recipes submitted to this form? What does it mean to collect community data on a website? How should that data be stored and used? These questions mirror the broader framework of Indigenous data sovereignty, which holds that data about Indigenous communities belongs to those communities - a direct extension of self-determination into digital spaces.)
  • CSTA 2-AP-17 (Grades 6-8): Systematically test and refine programs using a range of test cases. (The JavaScript interaction in Stage 7 introduces event-driven programming for the first time in the curriculum. Students test their submit handler by clicking the button and observing whether the form hides and the thank you message appears, learning to verify that their code produces the intended effect.)
  • CSTA 2-AP-13 (Grades 6-8): Decompose problems and subproblems into parts to facilitate the design, implementation, and review of programs. (The form is built across three stages: structure in Stage 4, additional field types in Stage 5, and CSS styling in Stage 6. This staged decomposition mirrors professional web development practice and makes the complexity of a full form manageable.)
  • ISTE 6c, Creative Communicator: Students communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects. (The recipe submission form is a functional communication tool: students design it so that any community member can contribute traditional food knowledge to a shared resource. The design decisions, what fields to include, how to label them, what the thank you message says, all shape how welcoming the form feels to its intended audience.)
  • ISTE 3b, Knowledge Constructor: Students evaluate the accuracy, perspective, credibility, and relevance of information and resources. (Stage 1 asks students to read from Native-led food sovereignty organizations and write one research paragraph in their own words. The unit's source tier policy directs them toward Indigenous-authored and Tribal-led sources before government or academic ones.)
  • MN Social Studies 7.4.9.6 (Grade 7): Describe the cultural contributions of groups from Minnesota's past and explain how diverse cultural perspectives contribute to the state's cultural heritage. (Food sovereignty is a direct expression of Tribal cultural continuity. The unit frames traditional food systems as living, present-day practices: seed saving, harvesting, and community food sharing as ongoing acts of sovereignty rather than historical practices.)
  • MN Health 6-8.1.1: Analyze the relationship between healthy behaviors and personal health. (The unit explicitly addresses the connection between food sovereignty, food access, and health outcomes in Native communities. Students learn that access to traditional foods is not just a cultural issue but a public health one, with food deserts and loss of traditional food knowledge directly affecting community wellbeing.)
  • MN CS K-12 6.1.2 (Grade 6): Create programs that include sequences, selection, and/or iteration. (Stage 7 introduces JavaScript event handling: a conditional interaction where clicking Submit triggers a sequence of two actions, hiding the form and showing the thank you message. This is the curriculum's first exposure to event-driven program flow.)
  • MN ELA 8.3.3.1 (Grade 8): Use technology to produce and publish writing. (The recipe submission form is designed as a publishing tool. Students write and style a form intended to collect and surface community food knowledge, understanding that the form they build could serve as a real contribution to Tribal food sovereignty efforts.)
  • ND CS 6.E.1 / 7.E.1 / 8.E.1 (Grades 6-8): Create artifacts by applying existing knowledge of computing concepts and practices. (Students apply HTML, CSS, and now JavaScript together for the first time. The form is a new artifact type, interactive rather than purely visual, that requires coordinating three languages simultaneously to produce a working result.)
  • ND Indigenous Studies, Contemporary Issues (All Grades): Understand the contemporary challenges and strengths of Indigenous communities in North Dakota. (Food sovereignty is an active policy and cultural issue for Turtle Mountain, Standing Rock, Fort Berthold, Spirit Lake, and other ND nations. The unit frames food sovereignty as a present-day movement students can participate in, not a historical concept to observe from a distance.)
  • ND Health 6-8.1.1: Describe how the physical, mental, social, and emotional dimensions of health are interrelated. (The pillar cards in Stage 2 make the connection explicit: food access and food security directly affect physical health, while connection to traditional foods and food practices affects cultural, mental, and social wellbeing. These are not separate categories.)
  • ND CS 9-12.E.3 (Grades 9-12): Design and iteratively develop computational artifacts for practical intent, personal expression, or to address a societal need. (The recipe submission form addresses a real community need: a place to collect and share traditional food knowledge that might otherwise go undocumented. Students understand from the start that they are building something with practical application, not just an exercise.)
  • SD CS 6-8.AP.M.1 (Grades 6-8): Decompose problems and subproblems into parts to facilitate the design, implementation, and review of increasingly complex programs. (The JavaScript interaction in Stage 7 is introduced in three parts: selecting elements with getElementById, listening for events with addEventListener, and modifying the display with style.display. Each piece is explained and practiced before they are connected into a complete interaction.)
  • SD Health 6-8.1.1: Analyze how personal health practices and behaviors influence health and wellness. (The connection between food sovereignty and health is made explicit throughout the unit: loss of access to traditional foods, displacement from traditional land and harvesting practices, and food deserts on Tribal lands are all presented as health equity issues, not just cultural ones.)