Tribal Resources and NGSS Alignment by Rye Hewett

Nez Perce Tribe Water Resources Division

rhewett5 — 2024-11-05 16:39:20 UTC

Water quality and quantity have important cultural and economic significance for the Nez Perce Tribe. The mission of the WRD is to “provide a foundation for management of the water rights secured by the Treaties of 1855 and 1863, and for monitoring the quality of water resources vital to the long-term sustainability of the Nez Perce Tribe and its heirs” (Nez Perce Tribe Water Resources Division Plan of Work 2005). Long-term viability of this resource depends on the development of comprehensive management programs for watersheds located on the reservation and ceded lands. The goals of the WRD surface water program quality monitoring program are to:

Implement tribal water quality policies and regulation on a watershed scale to protect, preserve, and enhance water quality.
Conduct research that supports the implementation of water quality management goals.
Implement tribal programs, policies, and regulations to protect surface water quality, including management practices that prevent pollutants from entering surface water.
Maintain, enhance, and restore wetland functions and values.
Protect off-reservation water resources.
Enhance protection of tribal water resources through coordination and consultation.

LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems

Nez Perce Forestry and Fire Management Division

rhewett5 — 2024-11-05 16:45:00 UTC

Forestry provides services in the following areas:

Forest management
Timber harvest
Forest development
Forest inventory and planning- Currently, inventory and planning is performing a Continuous Forest Inventory (CFI) of selected forested plots throughout the reservation. This inventory is performed every ten years to account for changes over time. They have currently performed 251 plot inventories out of 456 total.
Fire Management provides wildland fire protection to promote a healthy forest ecosystem as well as providing a fire-safe environment.
Services provided:
- Fuels management
- Fire prevention
- Fire preparedness
- Fire suppression
- Prescribed fire
- Burned area emergency rehabilitation
HS-ESS2-3 Earth's Systems
Develop a model based on evidence of Earth’s interior to describe the cycling of matter by thermal convection.

Environmental Restoration and Waste Management (ERWM)

rhewett5 — 2024-11-05 16:48:37 UTC

ERWM, the tribe’s nuclear waste cleanup program, is involved in cleanup of the Hanford nuclear site, which contaminated many natural resources in the mid-Columbia River area. ERWM works to protect and restore Nez Perce cultural and natural resources in this area.

HS-ETS1-2 Engineering Design

Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through engineering.

Fisheries Resources Management

rhewett5 — 2024-11-05 16:51:40 UTC

The Department of Fisheries Resources Management, with almost 200 employees, over a $20 million annual budget and a three-state work area (north-central Idaho, northeastern Oregon, and southeastern Washington) corresponding to the Nez Perce ancestral homeland, is one of the largest and most successful tribal fisheries programs in the United States. The program has been instrumental in restoring Columbia basin salmonids wisely, and in so doing, protecting and enhancing fishing rights reserved by the Tribe in its treaties with the United States. The Department is recognized by federal and state fisheries co-managers, land management agencies, those entities involved in managing the Columbia River hydropower system, other tribes and the public, as being indispensable to the restoration of fisheries resources in the Pacific Northwest.

Conservation Enforcement
Natural/Cultural Resource Protection, with an emphasis on Anadromous Salmonids. Enforcement of tribal fish and game regulations, and the protection of tribal members exercising treaty fishing, hunting, and gathering rights

HS-ESS2-5 Earth's Systems

Plan and conduct an investigation of the properties of water and its effects on Earth materials and surface processes.

Nez Perce Bio-control Center Program

rhewett5 — 2024-11-05 16:56:09 UTC

The Nez Perce Bio Control Center provides a full service biological weed control program to landowners and managers throughout the Pacific Northwest, while also promoting opportunities and creating quality employment for Nez Perce people.

We strive to:

Increase the availability of biological control for weeds. Increase the availability to organisms that are newly approved or are in limited supply in Idaho & Pacific Northwest.
Provide bio-control training and technology transfer to landowners & managers.
Redistribute bio-control agents from field insectaries to areas of need.
Monitor past and current releases with cooperators to determine biological control agent presence or absence and track vegetation changes from representative areas utilizing the Standardized Impact Monitoring Protocol ( SIMP).
Assist in the implementation of biological control of weeds in Idaho by managing the Statewide Biological Control Agent Release Database.

LS1.C: Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms