Meeting basic needs can be very complex

To kick off our class about alternative living in the US, we asked ourselves what it takes for a human being anywhere in the world to live. We came up with a class list of universal, basic human needs.

Student list of basic human needs:

• Food/water/oxygen
  
• Shelter/clothing
  
• Sex/reproduction
• Tools/technology - knives, hammers, means of transportation etc.
  
• Communication - language, art, music, dance
  
• Entertainment - games, music, art, dance, etc.
• Explanation of unknown - religion, science, mythology
  

We then compared how Native American tribes that lived in North Carolina (including the Pisgah that inhabited the Blue Ridge mountains where AMS is located) met our list of human needs with the ways these needs are met in the US today. The students each came up with their own list of how basic needs are met by most Americans.

Through making these comparisons, it became clear that people often create very complex systems and structures in order to meet their basic needs. We discussed municipal water systems and sewage treatment, ceremonial buildings that get torn down and rebuilt over and over, industrial agriculture and supermarkets, computer games and games using only reeds, and the various ways that religions, mythologies, and science explain the unknown in our world. There are many ways to meet our needs, and the diverse systems people around the world have found to do so are what make cultures unique.