Challenge 1
The What & Why of Crops
Design a farm in Minecraft highlighting the crops grown in your area and the reasons we grow them.
The NASEF Prompt
"Design a farm in Minecraft that highlights the crops grown in your area and the reasons we grow them. Think about what makes your region unique — its climate, history, and community needs. Consider factors like soil, weather, and local demand. Use your Minecraft farm to show how agriculture connects to daily life."
Our region is the southern Puget Sound — Tacoma, WA, at the foot of Mount Tahoma (Rainier). What makes it unique is not just the temperate marine climate, but the ten thousand years of Indigenous agricultural knowledge that preceded settler farming.
Our Focus: Pacific NW First Foods
Before the word "agriculture" existed, the Puyallup, Duwamish, Suquamish, Nisqually, Muckleshoot, and other Coast Salish peoples practiced sophisticated land management that produced abundant food. These are the First Foods — not wild, but tended.
Camas (Camassia quamash)
The most important food plant of the Pacific NW. Blue-flowered bulbs were cultivated in prairies maintained by controlled burning. Slow-roasted in earth ovens for 24-48 hours, they become sweet and calorie-dense. Camas prairies were the "breadbaskets" of the Nisqually, Puyallup, Duwamish, Muckleshoot, and Squaxin peoples.
Season: Harvest late spring/early summer
Wapato (Sagittaria latifolia)
Aquatic tuber harvested from wetlands and river margins. Women waded into cold water to loosen tubers with their toes. Called "Indian potato" — a staple starch that could be dried and stored. The Puyallup River wetlands, the Duwamish River estuary, and the Green River floodplain were prime wapato habitat for the Puyallup, Duwamish, and Muckleshoot peoples.
Season: Harvest autumn through early winter
Salal (Gaultheria shallon)
Dark purple berries that were the most important fruit of coastal peoples. Pressed into dried cakes for winter storage — essentially Indigenous fruit leather. Grows abundantly in the understory of PNW forests.
Season: Harvest mid to late summer
Salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.)
Not a "crop" in the Western sense, but the cornerstone of the Pacific NW food system. Five species cycle through the Puyallup River. Salmon are the bridge between ocean and forest — their bodies fertilize the trees. A farm without salmon is not a farm here.
Season: Species-dependent, spring through autumn
Stinging Nettles (Urtica dioica)
Multi-use powerhouse: nutrient-dense spring greens (more iron than spinach), fiber plant for cordage and cloth, and medicinal tea. One of the first spring foods — a sign that winter is over. Also relevant to Challenge 2 (textiles).
Season: Harvest young shoots in spring
Huckleberries (Vaccinium spp.)
Mountain and lowland varieties. Families traveled to high-elevation berry fields every summer — these gathering grounds were managed through fire. Huckleberries cannot be commercially farmed; they require the forest. A symbol of wild food sovereignty.
Season: Late summer at elevation
Fiddlehead Ferns
The young, coiled fronds of sword ferns and lady ferns, harvested in early spring. Rich in omega-3 fatty acids. A traditional first food that signals the start of the gathering season. Grow in the moist forests surrounding Tacoma.
Season: Early spring
The Duwamish & Suquamish Foodways
Duwamish: People of the Inside
The Duwamish (dxʷdəwʔabš) were the people of the river that now bears their name — the Duwamish River, which flows through what is today Seattle and Tukwila. Their food system was anchored in the river's salmon runs, the tidal flats of Elliott Bay, and the wapato wetlands of the Green-Duwamish watershed.
Chief Si'ahl (c.1786–1866), for whom Seattle is named, was the leader of both the Duwamish and Suquamish peoples. His famous speech reminds us that the land, water, and all living beings are relatives, not resources.
Today the Duwamish Tribe, though not federally recognized, maintains a longhouse and cultural center on the Duwamish River. Their fight for recognition is itself a food sovereignty issue — without federal status, they lack the treaty fishing rights that other Coast Salish nations retain.
Suquamish: People of the Clear Salt Water
The Suquamish (suq'ʷabš) lived on the western shore of Puget Sound, across from Seattle. Their longhouse at Old Man House (d'suq'ʷub) in what is now Suquamish was one of the largest in the region — over 900 feet long, housing hundreds of people.
Their food system centered on reef net fishing — an engineering achievement where nets were suspended between anchored canoes to intercept migrating salmon. Reef net sites were owned and inherited, representing one of the most sophisticated fishing technologies in the world.
The Suquamish Museum and Chief Seattle's grave at Suquamish are essential cultural sites. The tribe today operates one of the most successful tribal fisheries management programs in the Pacific NW.
The Three Sisters Polyculture
The Three Sisters — corn, beans, and squash — is the most famous example of Indigenous polyculture. Planted together, they form a self-sustaining system:
Corn (Elder Sister)
Provides the structure — a living trellis for the beans to climb
Beans (Middle Sister)
Fixes nitrogen in the soil, feeding all three plants. Climbs the corn stalk.
Squash (Youngest Sister)
Spreads along the ground, shading soil to retain moisture and deter weeds
Together, the Three Sisters produce more calories per acre than any of them alone, with zero external fertilizer input. This is the agricultural insight our farm build demonstrates — that polyculture is not primitive, it is advanced systems thinking.
Monoculture vs. Polyculture
The 100-to-400 STEAM Pipeline
Our Farmcraft entry is connected to a real-world economic pipeline: Big Mama Healing Teas. This social enterprise grows medicinal herbs in Tacoma, processes them into healing tea blends, and sells them through cooperative economics.
Seed investment: soil, seeds, containers
Grow, harvest, dry, blend
Package, brand, distribute
Revenue returned to community
This is TEK8 D2 (Coin/Yield) in action — the land literally producing wealth. Our Minecraft farm models this pipeline: from seed to product to market.
Hydroponics at MADF
The Tacoma Smelter Plume is a legacy of the ASARCO copper smelter that operated until 1985. Arsenic and lead contamination extends across 1,000 square miles of soil in the South Puget Sound. You cannot safely grow food in this soil without remediation.
Hydroponics is one answer: growing without soil. At MADF (Multi-service center), the Rising Roots program teaches hydroponic farming as a direct response to environmental injustice. Our Minecraft build includes a hydroponic section showing this technology.
This is where Indigenous food sovereignty meets environmental justice. The smelter plume is a colonial legacy; hydroponics is a technological bridge back to food self-determination.
Smelter Plume Facts
- 1,000+ sq miles contaminated
- Arsenic levels 20x safe limits in some areas
- Disproportionately affects low-income communities of color
- EPA Superfund site since 1983
- Soil replacement ongoing but incomplete
Minecraft Build Guide
How to represent Pacific NW First Foods and farming systems in Minecraft:
Camas Prairie
Use blue orchids or cornflowers on coarse dirt/grass. Create a flat prairie area. Add campfire blocks nearby for the earth ovens. Signs explain the 24-48 hour roasting process.
Wapato Wetland
Create a shallow water area with lily pads and seagrass. Use waterlogged stairs for wading areas. Potatoes in adjacent farmland represent the tubers. Add a drying rack structure.
Three Sisters Garden
Interplant wheat (corn), green carpet/vines (beans), and pumpkins (squash) in mound patterns. Use composters nearby. This is the centerpiece of the farm design.
Hydroponic Greenhouse
Glass structure with water channels (waterlogged slabs). Use glow lichen for grow lights. Plant various crops in raised beds above the water system. Redstone for automation.
Berry Patches
Sweet berry bushes for huckleberries and salal. Create forest understory areas with varying light levels. Add leaf blocks overhead for canopy. Signs label each species.
Salmon Stream
Flowing water through the farm with salmon (use tropical fish spawn eggs or armor stands with custom textures). Gravel river bed. Cedar trees along the banks. Fish ladders from stairs.
K-W-L Chart Template
Use this framework to structure your research before, during, and after your build:
K — What I Know
- What crops do I already see growing in my area?
- What do I know about Indigenous farming here?
- What is the climate like in the Pacific NW?
- Have I heard of the Tacoma Smelter Plume?
W — What I Want to Know
- What are the original "First Foods" of this land?
- How does polyculture work?
- Why can't we just grow food in the ground here?
- How did camas prairies get maintained?
L — What I Learned
- (Fill in after your research and build)
- New understanding of Indigenous agriculture
- Connections between food, land, and justice
- How my Minecraft farm tells the story
TEK8 Petals for This Challenge
The primary petal. Soil sovereignty, composting, seed saving, permaculture design, Three Sisters. This challenge IS the garden petal.
Activities: Soil testing, compost building, seed cataloguing, Three Sisters planting layout
Foraging, First Foods, seasonal rounds. Learning what the land offers before you plant. Camas, salal, huckleberries, fiddleheads.
Activities: Plant walks, iNaturalist surveys, seasonal food calendars, harvest protocols
Food sovereignty as a journey. The salmon that connects ocean to forest. Water as relative (Wai). Hydroponics as water-based growing.
Activities: Watershed mapping, salmon life cycle study, water quality testing, journey journaling
Resources & Citations
First Foods & Seasonal Rounds
Northwest Indian College Traditional Plants & Foods Program; Puyallup Tribal Language Program; "Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast" by Pojar & MacKinnon
Three Sisters Polyculture
Robin Wall Kimmerer, "Braiding Sweetgrass" (ch. on Three Sisters); "Indian Givers" by Jack Weatherford; USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research
Tacoma Smelter Plume
WA Dept. of Ecology Tacoma Smelter Plume site; EPA Region 10 Superfund records; Puyallup Tribe Environmental Dept. reports
NASEF Farmcraft Resources
Cleverlike School LMS (code: 827333); USDA IPAD Crop Production Maps; Our World in Data agricultural production data