The Traveling Exhibit: Native Waters Sharing the Source
Native Waters: Sharing the Source is a 500-square-foot traveling exhibit that helps children and adults explore the importance of water in their lives.

The exhibit was designed by Project WET’s Native Waters in cooperation with the Science Museum of Minnesota for use in schools, museums, libraries and cultural centers.  Through both cultural and scientific methods, participants learn about water through hands-on activities, recorded interviews with Tribal people and the film Native Waters: Sharing the Source.

The exhibit floor plan is based on the Plains Indian tipi liner and outside cover.

The inside space of the exhibit or tipi is an area to hear stories and learn. Audio and video stations represent the oral historian and storyteller who introduce different aspects of the world of Native Waters.  In addition, hands-on interactive models introduce basic principles of water science
 
At the center of the exhibit is a sculpture of a spring. The spring rests on a field of green with four red pathways to the four cardinal directions.

Representing the tipi liner are red, blue, yellow and white banners, which carry primal designs and drawings. Each banner expresses a theme and contains quotations from Missouri Basin elders and/or Tribal members.

Animals on each banner have mythical, spiritual, religious or commercial significance to Missouri River Basin tribal people.

On the outside design of the exhibit banners, or symbolically the tipi wall, is a mural or story of the Missouri River Basin, from the river’s headwaters to its confluence with the Mississippi River. The river’s story starts high in the Rocky Mountains and travels east toward the sunrise until it reaches the mouth of the Mississippi River near the mounds of Cahokia, the Native settlement that once was home to over 50,000 people.

Native Waters: Sharing the Source is an exhibit completed by those interacting within its space. To view the exhibit full of people is to see the Missouri River Basin and its many human inhabitants.

It is Native Waters’ hope that visitors come to the exhibit and realize the many aspects of life within the Missouri River Basin. Visitors should travel to their homes with a renewed sense of respect and appreciation to protect our sacred water and remember we are “sharing the source.”

For questions and to reserve the display, contact:

Scott Frazier, Executive Director, Project WET’s Native Waters and Indigenous People’s Liaison
Project WET Foundation
scott.frazier@projectwet.org
406-585-4149