Climate change has impacted and will continue to impact indigenous peoples, their lifeways and culture, and the natural world upon which they rely, in unpredictable and potentially devastating ways. Many climate adaptation planning tools fail to address the unique needs, values and cultures of  indigenous communities. This Tribal Climate Adaptation Menu, which was developed by a diverse group of  collaborators representing tribal, academic, intertribal and government entities in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, provides a framework to integrate indigenous and traditional knowledge, culture, language and history into the climate adaptation planning process. The Tribal Climate Adaptation Menu is designed to work with the Northern Institute of  Applied Climate Science (NIACS) Adaptation Workbook, and as a stand-alone resource

Native communities are among the most vulnerable to climate change due to their small size and limited resources, as well limited voice in American government policy making and our culture.  DOI has declared it a mandatory goal that the agency works to assist tribes with their climate change adaptation needs.  Doing so requires considerable time developing relationships and trust. In addition to engagement through site visits, this project entails providing localized climate summaries (data tables, maps, time series) for tribal communities in the NE CASC footprint as well as engaging them in decision making frameworks such as Scenario Planning

The purpose of the Indigenous Planning Summer Institute (IPSI) is to introduce concepts of Indigenous planning; Examine the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) theoretical model of sustainability as a guide for Indigenous Planning; Visit the Menominee community and forest and surrounding tribal communities to see different examples of Indigenous Planning in practice. We have slowly built up support for this specific project over the years, including directing support from NE CASC and integrating resources, products and information into this project. The future goal we are working toward is to create indigenous students who are the next leaders, managers, and scientists in their communities, and well versed in indigenous planning concepts, in relation to climate change and other community resiliency topics

This project is focused on the specific actions of CMNSDI as part of the CMN Campus and Menominee community to engage in climate change initiatives, as a means to provide demonstration and products that can be provided to other TCU's to consider and follow as they engage with their own communities on climate change and its predicted impacts to community life. This project will cover the development of educational materials for use in existing courses at CMN; an assessment and summary of existing TCU led or affiliated projects and any available results; creation of a recommended best practices for use in these efforts. These efforts are primarily focused on TCU's and are connected to meeting the overall NE CASC goal "to provide climate science and global research that assists resource managers in developing management and adaptation plans that address current and predicted changes at both regional and local scales"