Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

Explore the use of stories and myths in Braiding Sweetgrass. How does Kimmerer use storytelling to support her scientific arguments? What relationship does Kimmerer imply should exist between Indigenous stories and “scientific” knowledge?

What is Kimmerer’s vision of what the practice of botany should involve? How did the book transform your understanding of what constitutes knowledge about the nonhuman world?

Examine the impact of the book’s structure. How does the combination of memoir, Indigenous wisdom, and scientific knowledge reflect Kimmerer’s arguments about The Interconnectedness of Life on Earth?

How does Kimmerer use plants like sweetgrass, pecan, black ash, and corn as metaphors for life on Earth? Choose one of these examples and analyze its significance to the book’s themes and arguments.

The injustice of the American Government’s Treatment of Indigenous Americans is a major theme in the book. How is this historical injustice related to modern science, agriculture, and medicine?

The book is divided into six sections with titles describing human interactions with sweetgrass: “Meeting Sweetgrass,” “Planting Sweetgrass,” etc. Explore the connection between these titles and the information presented in each section. What kind of relationship to the Earth do the section titles model?

How does Kimmerer balance her scientific expertise with the Indigenous wisdom she was raised with? Does living in two cultures affect her thinking? How does she reconcile them?

Explore Kimmerer’s use of the Windigo figure in the final section of the book. How does her discussion of this monster fit into her discussion of plants elsewhere? What examples of Windigo thinking can you identify in your own life, and what lessons from the book might you apply to them?