Whilst we have been in lockdown Level 4 I asked my class to make a 3D model of the Lee’s Migration Model.

I wanted to get them off their laptops and doing something fun. They had to use material lying around the house.

I wasn’t expecting much from the students but look at this.

I think this student really understands the model.

The vocabulary we use to describe landforms and landscapes comes from languages around the world. It’s a prevalent example of how we rely upon the traditional ecological knowledge of peoples who know their lands best.

Here are some of the etymologies:

Alpine: From Latin Alpes “The Alps”
Archipelago: From Greek Arkhi Pélagos “chief sea” referring to the Aegean Sea
Atoll: From Dhivehi atholhu “palm of the hand”
Bayou: From Choctaw bayuk “small stream”
Billabong: From Wiradjuri bilabaŋ “watercourse that runs only after rain”
caldera: From Spanish caldera “cooking pot” referring to Las Cañadas caldera in the Canary Islands.
Cay: From Taíno cairi “island”
Cenote: From Yucatec Maya tsʼonot “accessible groundwater”
Drumlin: From Irish droimnín “littlest ridge”
Fjord: From Norwegian fjord “lake-like”
Geyser: From Icelandic Geysir “one who gushes”
Isthmus: From Greek isthmos “neck” referring to the Isthmus of Corinth
Jungle: From Sanskrit jaṅgala “arid”
Lagoon: From Venetian Laguna “lake” referring to the Venetian Lagoon
Mangrove: From Guaraní mangle “twisted tree”
Monadnock: From Abenaki Menonadenak “smooth mountain” referring to Mount Monadnock
Oasis: From Egyptian ouahe “dwelling place”
Savannah: From Taíno sabana “treeless plain”
Steppe: From Russian stepʹ “flat grassy plain”
Taiga: From Yakut tayga “untraversable forest”
Tundra: From Kildin Sami tūndâr “treeless plain”
Volcano: From Sicilian Vulcano, one of the Aeolian Islands



Map by Jordan Engel. As always, the Decolonial Atlas’ original media can be reused under the Decolonial Media License 0.1.

https://cutt.ly/OWfJfQE