The Exhibit Museum of Natural History will offer visitors a chance to experience Michigan Native American cultural traditions in their contemporary context noon-4:30 p.m. Nov. 20 at Native American Heritage Day.

The event will include an opportunity to meet practicing Native artists, learn about a hot environmental issue in connection with a traditional Native art form, and give feedback on the “beta version” of a new planetarium show on Native sky legends. In each case, the importance of handing down traditions from one generation to the next will be emphasized.

Highlights of the event:

• Ash Basketry Meets the Emerald Ash Borer: Teacher and artist John Pigeon (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians) of Dorr will share his heritage by demonstrating the art of black ash basket weaving and discussing the importance of this cultural tradition to Michigan Native people. With the assistance of his son, Johnny, Pigeon will discuss the cultivation, selection and ceremonial aspects of cutting black ash trees for basket making.

Bringing this time-honored traditional art form into the present, Jessica Simons—a natural resource specialist with the Southeast Michigan Resource Conservation and Development Council—will offer information on the invasive emerald ash borer that has killed millions of ash trees in southeastern Michigan during the past few years. Thousands of dead or dying ash trees have now been cut, and Simons also will discuss the economic and environmental benefits of recycling ash logs into useful products.

• Storytelling and the Night Sky: A sneak preview of a new planetarium show on Michigan Native stories, “Stories My Ancestors Told: Sky Legends of the Three Fires.” The “Three Fires” are the three tribes that make up the Anishinabe people of the Great Lakes region, including the Odawa (Ottawa), Bodewadimi (Potawatomi) and Ojibwa (Ojibway, Ojibwe or Chippewa) tribes. The central storyteller in the production is Larry Plamondon (Grand River Band of Odawa Indians) from Delton. The show will run every hour on the half hour from 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Plamondon also will tell live stories, different from those in the planetarium show, at noon, 1, 2 & 3 p.m. Plamondon will emphasize the importance of storytelling in Native American culture as a means for teaching and passing on knowledge and traditions.

• Traditional arts and hands-on activity: Teacher, artist and grandmother Eva Kennedy (Oneida Nation) of Dearborn Heights will present a variety of traditional Native art works and discuss their cultural significance and the materials and techniques used to make them. She will lead a hands-on activity for children, making a friendship bracelet out of leather and beads.

For more information, visit http://www.exhibits.lsa.umich.edu.