Donna House facts for kids
Donna House (born around 1953 or 1954) is a Navajo Nation ethnobotanist. An ethnobotanist is a scientist who studies how people use plants, especially in different cultures. Donna House also helped design the National Museum of the American Indian.
Early Life and Education
Donna House was born in Washington, D.C.. Her father worked as a guard at The Pentagon. She grew up on the Navajo Nation Reservation in Arizona, in places like Oak Springs and Fort Defiance, Arizona. Donna says she is from the Towering House People Clan of the Diné (Navajo) and the Turtle Clan of the Oneida people. She grew up with eight brothers and sisters, following traditional Navajo values.
Donna went to the University of Utah. She was the first person from Oak Springs to graduate from a university. She first studied molecular biology, thinking she wanted to be a doctor. However, she later changed her major to environmental science. This allowed her to study the important relationships between people and the land around them. She is a citizen of the Navajo Nation.
Protecting Native Plants
In 1984, a group called The Nature Conservancy (TNC) worked with the Navajo Nation. They started the Navajo Natural Heritage Program. This program was created to find and train staff to protect nature. Donna House was hired as the first head of this program and also as its botanist.
For eight years, Donna worked to gather information about native plants. She focused on protecting plants that were endangered, especially those important to Indigenous traditions. For example, she worked to find the habitats of Kearney's blue star. This is one of the rarest flowers in Arizona. It is found on the lands of the Tohono Oʼodham people.
Designing the National Museum of the American Indian
Donna House was part of the planning committee for the National Museum of the American Indian for eleven years. This museum is part of the Smithsonian Institution. She represented her Native nations on the committee. Other designers from different tribes included Douglas Cardinal, Johnpaul Jones, Ramona Sakiestewa, and Lou Weller.
Donna made important contributions to the museum's design. She helped decide that the building's entrance should face east. This direction aligns with the sun's movement and parts of the solar calendar. She also found and grew 189 different types of native plants for the museum's gardens. These gardens were arranged to show four different natural areas that used to be in the region. These included an upland hardwood forest, eastern meadowlands, traditional croplands, and lowland freshwater wetlands. This last area honored Tiber Creek, which flows beneath the museum site. All the land and seeds used for the museum were blessed before they became part of the construction.
