Fifth and sixth grade students at Ss. Peter and Paul Catholic School of Lehighton learned quite a bit about NativeAmericans of North America as part of their Social Studies and U.S. History classes.

As part of the curriculum, students were asked by their teacher, Jennifer Lorenz, to to select one tribe from the four groups, Eastern Woodlands, Great Plains, Southwest Desert and Northwest Coast to focus on. They were then challenged to design a trifold booklet and an art project that represents theirchosen tribe."The went above and beyond my expectations," said Lorenz, who teaches the combined classes.Students had the opportunity to display their projects and provide an oral report.Gina Piccioni selected the Miwok Tribe from and made an arrow. She described how she carved the stone arrow that she attached by string to made the tip of the arrow.Amber Curran chose the Wailaki tribe from the Pacific Northwest and showed her totem pole she carved and painted. Current said that each symbol that she chose on the totem pole had significance to the tribe.Connor Hanley chose a tribe that lived in what is now British Columbia. He noted that the tribe lived in an area which was rainy a good part of the time. He said that he carved his totem pole and chose to focus of the top of the totem pole where the tribe would honor its ancestors.Vicky Barthold selected the Iroquois tribe of the Eastern Woodlands. She said the tribe lived in New York state and lived in long houses. She created a wompum belt. As part of her presentation, she noted that shells were coveted by the tribe because they settled no where near the ocean so shells were rare and hard to come by which made them valuable.Katie Aaron created a dream catcher to represent the Sioux tribe. She described how she used a pine tree branch and bent it to create the circle.Casey Hanley also created dream catcher using twine to make the interior of the dream catcher. He noted that theIroquis lived in long houses."The goal of the project was to have the student become more aware of how these groups reflect the many different heritages of Carbon County and to see how many of the groups still exist today," said Lorenz.