Module

In teaching all subjects 4th-12th grade in a single classroom with ten students, I find myself learning more than I would ever expect my students to learn in a day.  Compund the multi-subject, multi-age, multi-ethnic, classroom setting with the fact that I am very new to Alaska, I am learning not only a new style of teaching, but a new culture as well. 
Unfortunately, I live and work on an island that has all but abandoned traditional cultures.  The United States government didn't exactly have cultural preservation in mind when they took over the island during WWII.  I am expected, however, to research and teach traditional Aleut scientific methods.  I am still getting familiar with all of it, but what an amazing history we have here and, sadly, it seems the Aleut people are disappearing from their own environment.  There is an immediate concern that the Unungax language itself will not be spoken in the near future.
What I have learned in researching this module is that science is science.  There does not beed to be a laboratory to go through the scientific method.  In fact, I believe that a lot of times we over complicate things by getting too analytical and technological in a lot of scientific studies. 
Traditional methods used by Indigenous People of Alaska simply to survive for over a thousand years in such a harsh environment are invaluable in teaching in today's modern classroom.  By examining the examples in the module and researching additional methods of survival by Indigenous people, it allows cross-curriculum study to flourish.  I am planning on using a video shown in Module II to study 1)science (how a naked baby can survive in a home made of ice), 2) Alaskan History, 3) Alaskan Geography, and 4). Civics (what, politically, is our government doing that affects these cultures negatively or positively?)  This will be supplemented quite a bit with additional materials, obviously, but the idea is that I am allowed to broaden my scope of education in the classroom and attack mutiple levels of each subject. 
I should say now that I am not entirely sure I am doing this blog thing correctly.  I felt like a monkey doing a math problem when I was trying to leave comments on Nic's blog earlier.  I think I uploaded a picture.  I hope it's the right one.  You are either looking at a picture of my beautiful wife and daughter (along with my goofy mug) OR you may have a picture of Bea Arthur that I once tried to send to a friend as a joke.  Either way, rest assured I never watched Golden Girls and I will have this figured out shortly. 
The information on the modules is fascinating and moving up here from Arizona, I am in constant awe of everything.  Pleasantly Overwhelmed with everything out here.