Grade by Grade
B. Life Systems · Growth and Changes in Plants

How People Around the World Use Plants

B2.6 A3.3 A1.1About 35 minutes
Learning goals
  • I can describe how people use plants for food, shelter, medicine and clothing.
  • I can give examples of how First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples use plants.
  • I can give examples of how people in different parts of the world use plants.
  • I can find things in my home that come from plants.

Words to know

shelter
A building or cover that protects people from weather, like a house or a tent.
medicine
Something used to help a sick or hurt body get better.
fibre
A long, thin thread. Plant fibres like cotton can be spun into thread and woven into cloth.
crop
A plant that farmers grow in large amounts for food or other uses.
Indigenous peoples
The first peoples of a land. In Canada: First Nations, Métis and Inuit.
traditional knowledge
Knowledge that a community has learned over many generations and passes on to its children.

Plants all around you

Look around the room. Is there a wooden table? A cotton T-shirt? A paper book? A slice of bread? All of these came from plants!

People everywhere use plants. The plants they use depend on what grows where they live and on their culture, the ways of life and knowledge passed down in their families and communities.

1. Plants for food

Plants feed the world. Different places grow different main foods:

  • Rice is a main food for many people in Asia, for example in China, India and Japan.
  • Wheat is ground into flour for bread, pasta and roti. Canada's Prairie provinces grow a lot of wheat.
  • Corn was first grown thousands of years ago by Indigenous peoples in what is now Mexico. Today it is grown around the world.
  • Potatoes were first grown by Indigenous peoples in the mountains of South America.
  • Maple syrup and maple sugar: First Nations in eastern North America, such as the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee, collected maple sap in spring and boiled it down into sugar long before Europeans arrived.
A wooden table with a bundle of wheat, a bowl of rice, ears of corn, a basket of potatoes and cassava roots.
These are main foods for people around the world: wheat, rice, corn, potatoes and cassava. Which ones have you eaten? AI-generated image

2. Plants for shelter

  • In Canada, many houses are built with wood from trees like spruce and pine.
  • In parts of Asia, people build with strong, fast-growing bamboo.
  • In many parts of the world, roofs are made of dried grasses or reeds tied tightly together (called thatch).
  • The Haudenosaunee built longhouses with frames of wooden poles covered in sheets of elm bark. Many families lived together in one longhouse.
  • The Anishinaabe made wigwams: frames of young bent trees covered with birchbark or mats woven from cattails.
  • First Nations on the Pacific Coast, such as the Haida, built large houses of western red cedar planks.

3. Plants for medicine

People have used plants to help them heal for thousands of years.

  • Many peoples, including First Nations, used willow bark to ease pain. Scientists studied a material in willow, and this helped lead to the medicine aspirin.
  • Aloe vera gel has been used in many cultures to soothe small burns and sunburns.
  • For many First Nations, tobacco, sweetgrass, sage and cedar are the four sacred medicines. They are used in ceremonies, prayers and for healing, and are treated with great respect.

Medicine safety

Never eat or use a plant as medicine on your own. Some plants are poisonous, and some look like safe plants. Only a doctor, pharmacist or someone with real knowledge (like a trained Elder or knowledge keeper) should decide this, with your grown-up.

4. Plants for clothing

  • Cotton grows in warm places like India, China and the southern United States. Its fluffy seed fibres are spun into thread for T-shirts and jeans.
  • Linen cloth is made from the stems of the flax plant. Canada grows a lot of flax.
  • Rubber for boots comes from the sap of the rubber tree, which grows in hot, rainy places.
  • First Nations on the Pacific Coast wove cedar bark into soft, rain-proof capes, hats and mats.
  • People have made colourful dyes for cloth from plants, like the blue dye indigo.
cotton plantfluffy fibresaround the seedsspun intothreadwoven intoa T-shirt
From plant to T-shirt: the fluffy fibres around cotton seeds are spun into thread, then woven into cloth.

Indigenous knowledge and technology

First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples have used their traditional knowledge of plants for thousands of years. Here are a few examples:

  • The birchbark canoe, made by the Anishinaabe and other First Nations, is light, strong and waterproof. It was so well designed that European traders used it to travel across Canada.
  • Snowshoes with wooden frames, made by many First Nations, let people travel over deep snow.
  • Métis families gathered berries such as saskatoon berries. Some were mixed into pemmican, a food made of dried meat and fat that kept for a long time on long journeys.
  • In the Arctic, few plants grow, so Inuit used plants in careful ways. They picked berries like blueberries and crowberries, and used dried moss or Arctic cotton grass as a wick in the qulliq, a stone oil lamp used for light and heat.

Many Indigenous peoples teach that we should take only what we need, give thanks, and leave enough for the plants to grow back.

UseExamples from around the worldExamples from First Nations, Métis and Inuit
foodrice, wheat, potatoes, cassavacorn, beans and squash; maple sugar; wild rice; berries
shelterwood houses, bamboo, thatched roofselm bark longhouses, birchbark wigwams, cedar plank houses
medicinewillow bark (aspirin), aloe verawillow bark; the four sacred medicines
clothingcotton, linen from flax, rubber bootscedar bark capes and hats
Some ways people use plants.
FOODrice, wheat, corn, maple sugarSHELTERwood, bamboo, birchbark, elm barkMEDICINEwillow bark, aloe veraCLOTHINGcotton, linen (flax), cedar bark
People everywhere use plants for food, shelter, medicine and clothing.
Worked example

Let's sort plant uses

Sort each item into food, shelter, medicine or clothing: a cotton sweater, a birchbark wigwam, a bowl of rice, aloe gel for a small burn, a wooden cabin, linen pants.

  1. Is it eaten? Food: bowl of rice.
  2. Does it protect people from weather as a building? Shelter: birchbark wigwam, wooden cabin.
  3. Does it help heal? Medicine: aloe gel.
  4. Is it worn? Clothing: cotton sweater, linen pants.

Food: rice. Shelter: wigwam, wooden cabin. Medicine: aloe gel. Clothing: cotton sweater, linen pants.

Just for fun

Riddle: I come from a tree, I am full of words, and I have a spine but no bones. What am I?

A book!

Hands-on activity

Plant hunt at home

You need: paper and a pencil.

  1. Make a chart with 4 columns: Food, Shelter (building), Clothing, Other.
  2. Walk around your home with a grown-up. Find things that come from plants. Look at labels on clothes (cotton, linen) and food packages.
  3. Write each thing in the right column. Try to find at least 3 in each column. ("Other" could be paper, a pencil, a cardboard box, a rubber ball.)
  4. Pick one item. Ask your family or look in a book: Which plant did it come from? Where in the world was that plant grown?
  5. Tell someone about the most surprising thing you found.

Grown-up note: Do not include medicines in the hunt; talk about them instead.

Your turn

1

Name the four main ways people use plants in this lesson.

2

Which plant is cotton cloth made from?

3

What did the Haudenosaunee use to cover their longhouses?

4

What did the Anishinaabe use to make canoes and to cover wigwams?

5

Name two main foods from plants that people eat in different parts of the world.

6

What are the four sacred medicines for many First Nations?

7

Why should you never use a plant as medicine on your own?

More practice: warm-up

1

Is a wooden chair made from a plant?

2

What plant gives us maple syrup?

3

Is paper made from plants?

4

Name a plant food you ate today.

5

What plant is linen made from?

More practice: on your own

1

Why do people in different places use different plants?

2

How did the birchbark canoe help people travel?

3

Why did Inuit traditionally use fewer plants than people in the south?

4

How do people use plants for shelter in places where bamboo grows?

5

What is pemmican and how did Métis families use berries in it?

Challenge

1

Your T-shirt is 100% cotton. Explain how a plant became your shirt.

2

Explain why the idea "take only what you need" helps plants survive.

3

Pacific Coast First Nations used cedar for houses, canoes and clothing. Why do you think cedar was so useful there?

Check your understanding

Quiz

1.

Which is an example of using a plant for clothing?

2.

What did the Anishinaabe use to make canoes?

3.

Which food was first grown by Indigenous peoples in what is now Mexico?

4.

Haudenosaunee longhouses were covered with...

5.

Which is the safe choice about plant medicines?

6.

Linen cloth is made from which plant?

For parents and teachers

Big idea (B2.6): People around the world, including Indigenous peoples, use plants for food, shelter, medicine and clothing, and the plants they use depend on what grows locally and on cultural knowledge. Recognizing Indigenous innovations such as the birchbark canoe and maple sugar making connects to contributions from diverse communities (A3.3). The home plant hunt is a simple research task (A1.1).

Teaching respectfully: Use the names of specific nations (Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, Haida) rather than a single "Indigenous" way, and speak of traditions as living, not only historical: many First Nations, Métis and Inuit people practise them today. Sacred medicines are used with care and protocols; we describe them, not how to use them. Local Indigenous friendship centres, museums and library programs are good places to learn more.

Safety: Make it a firm family rule that no plant is eaten or used as a remedy without a grown-up, and that wild berries are not picked and eaten unless an adult who knows the plant is sure.

Common difficulties: Children often think only fruits and vegetables come from plants. The plant hunt usually surprises them (paper, cotton, wood, rubber, spices, chocolate).