Eighteen third graders sat cross-legged on the floor of their classroom at Sunny Sands Elementary School in Cathedral City on Friday, giving their teacher, Ramona Frost, their full attention.

They were reviewing some of what they had learned about the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and the tribe's Cahuilla ancestors as part of a new curriculum developed by the tribe and the Palm Springs Unified School District.

The district in the 2017-2018 school year had about 125 Native American students. The vast majority of students in the district are Hispanic or Latino — over 18,800 in 2017-2018. The ethnicities with the next highest enrollment numbers included nearly 2,900 white students and 1,314 black students.

Frost quizzed the students Friday about the tribe's tradition of bird singing and what materials Native Americans had used for rock art many years ago.

"Why were the pictograph drawings in red?" she asked.

Calling the students by name, they answered: raspberries, cranberries, strawberries.

© Omar Ornelas/The Desert Sun Sunny Sands Elementary School third grade teacher Ramona Frost, teaches her pupils about the Cahuilla indigenous people of the desert during a curriculum at their school on November 1, 2019.

Lessons like this were made possible by a 10-lesson Native American curriculum launched this fall following two years of planning and a series of pilot lessons in the spring. In other lessons, children will learn about the importance of water resources for the tribe and misconceptions some young people have about Native Americans.

© Omar Ornelas/The Desert Sun Sunny Sands Elementary School third grade teacher Ramona Frost, teaches her pupils about the Cahuilla indigenous people of the desert during a curriculum at their school on November 1, 2019.

On the whiteboard behind Frost were portrait photographs, from archival black and white images to recent photos, including one of Jeff Grubbe, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians chairman.

During a previous lesson, the class learned that all of those people in the pictures — with various skin tones and types of clothing — were Native Americans.

Asked about highlights from his class, 8-year-old Eduardo Perez brought up what Cahuilla people used without the tools we have today, like berries for painting and rocks for carving. Perez also said he learned that "not all Agua Caliente people are dark-skinned."

© Omar Ornelas/The Desert Sun Sunny Sands Elementary School third graders from left, Eduardo Perez and Alexis Stacklie learn about the Cahuilla indigenous people of the desert during a curriculum at their school on November 1, 2019.

Agua Caliente Tribal Council member Reid Milanovich said the photo activity was his favorite because it helped kids understand similarities between Native Americans and themselves. Milanovich and Tribal Council member Anthony Purnel worked closely with the district to develop the curriculum.

Milanovich also spoke to the importance of teaching children about specifically local Native American culture and history.

"We're not East Coast Indians or Midwest Indians, and sometimes the way Hollywood likes to portray natives — all natives — is a bunch of guys sitting around in headdresses, sitting around drums, but that's not who we are," he said.

Milanovich said he thought the curriculum was one of the first of its kind, if not the first, in the country. That thought was echoed by several representatives for the tribe and district, though none could be certain.

"It represents, as far as I know, a unique three-part collaboration among a native people, a public school district and a philanthropic foundation," said Mark Gauthier, The Foundation of the Palm Springs Unified School District's board president.

Gauthier said The Foundation suggested the partnership to create a curriculum shortly before a state requirement for high school students to complete an ethnic studies course was introduced.

Now the curriculum could be a model for school districts across America, he said.

© Omar Ornelas/The Desert Sun Sunny Sands Elementary School third graders Alexis Torres and Valerie Delgadillo learn about the Cahuilla indigenous people of the desert during a curriculum at their school on November 1, 2019.

Purnel said it was exciting for kids to "create a deep connection" with the tribe and its Cahuilla ancestors through hands-on learning as they interacted with tribal artifacts and visited ancestral lands. For the first time, all of the third-grade classes in the district will visit the Indian Canyons during the school year.

Russell Eves, a teacher who oversees history and social studies curriculum for the district, said the difference in students' concepts of Native Americans before and after completing the lessons was "night and day."

"In school classrooms, the curriculum that was in place before this didn't have a whole lot about Native Americans and it had nothing about the local tribe," Eves said.

A Native American curriculum for eighth and 11th graders in the district is being developed, with plans for pilot lessons to begin in spring. The district also intends to have pilot lessons ready for fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh graders for the 2020-2021 school year.

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Risa Johnson covers Native American affairs in the Coachella Valley and beyond. She can be reached at risa.johnson@desertsun.com or (760) 778-4737. Follow her on Twitter @risamjohnson

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This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Native American curriculum launches in PSUSD schools through Agua Caliente joint effort