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Concurrent Education Session

Design and the Creative Process

FRI-D06: Listening to the Land: Integrating Indigenous Perspectives for Restoration and Healing

Friday, October 10, 2025
3:45 PM – 5:00 PM CT
1.25 PDH, LA CES/HSW

What is it to be redbird, water, a cottonwood? Learn how participatory park design fosters healing through Indigenous, local, and historic perspectives. By integrating cultural narratives, promoting reciprocity, and strengthening partnerships, we restore ecosystems and gain understanding of our own identities through the experiences of other beings.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Form partnerships that include strategies for engaging Indigenous and other diverse communities and incorporating feedback on themes like play, connection, and uniting ecologies and histories.
  • Learn specific presentation and inquiry methods to effectively and respectfully engage Indigenous communities, focused on initial research that prompts and inspires stories and feedback.
  • Learn how storytelling can shape design elements, using Indigenous narratives to influence play features, planting choices, and pathways that encourage learning through experience and cultural exploration.
  • Learn how park design connects people and ecology, emphasizing the role of reciprocity in restoring relationships with the land, wildlife, and communities and ensuring systematic positive impacts.