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NAU Diné program teaches traditional lessons to K-12 teachers

Teachers in Navajo schools across northern Arizona will be working with Northern Arizona University instructors to help integrate Indigenous environmental practices into their classrooms. 

Teachers participating in NAU’s Diné Institute for Navajo Nation Educators will explore the relationships between themselves and the environment. They’ll learn about medicinal plants, local food sources and how to manage landscapes through fire. 

NAU forestry professor Peter Fulé is one of the program instructors.

"If you look around the world, traditionally the people who are indigenous to an area have a much broader and longer term understanding of nature and human’s interaction with nature," he said.

The about 85 teachers have gone through the program since it began in 2018.

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Fronteras Desk senior editor Michel Marizco is an award-winning investigative reporter based in Flagstaff.