MARQUETTE — Northern Michigan University is offering 11 self-paced, online educational modules related to the COVID-19 pandemic for free.

NMU faculty members from a variety of disciplines developed the short, non-credit courses. Topics range from the scientific aspects of coronaviruses and testing to the impacts on communities, businesses and families to emotional well-being.

“We really wanted this to be a community service, with Northern delivering a broad spectrum of COVID-related information in a comprehensive bundle of smaller modules that the public can access,” said Kerri Schuiling, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, in a news release. “Each takes about an hour to complete at one’s own convenience and is monitored by a faculty member.”

The modules and associated faculty members are:

≤ Biology of Coronaviruses, Josh Sharp

≤ Business of a Public Health Crisis: Commerce, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Michael Crum

≤ COVID-19 Testing, Paul Mann

≤ COVID-19, the Internet and Your Inbox: Checking What is and is not Reliable, Bruce Sargeant and Jim Marquardt

≤ Emotional Well-being and Resiliency During COVID-19, Mary Etchison and Christine Hartline

≤ An Introduction to Indigenous Food Systems, Martin Reinhardt

≤ Learning Activities for Family Fun, Kristen White and Gaby Eyzaguirre

≤ Pandemic Planning & Crisis Communication, Jes Thompson

≤ Race, Gender and Social Justice, Rebecca Ulland

≤ The U.S. Government Pandemic Response Playbook, Carter Wilson

≤ When Staying Home Isn’t Safe (domestic violence), Abigail Wyche

What do indigenous food systems have to do with the COVID-19 pandemic?

“You have to think about it from that perspective that I’m laying out, in kind of a historical fashion,” said Reinhardt, interim director of NMU’s Center for Native American Studies.

He said those systems predate colonial food systems and are natural foods that include things such as ramps, fiddleheads, wild leeks, native fish and deer, as well as foods that Native people domesticated.

The course will introduce people to those systems that go beyond, say, the traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

Those systems can be practical in today’s COVID-19 climate.

“These are the foods that are here in their backyards that are very nutritious,” Reinhardt said. “They’re free. They’re especially adapted to this climate.”

What’s problematic, he said, is when people face uncertainty in accessing foods in the supermarket as they also face a second wave of COVID-19.

“What are people going to do as far as accessing foods? Are we really going to see people going to the restaurants? Are we going to see them wanting to go into the supermarkets?” Reinhardt asked.

People faced a shortage of meats in the first wave, he pointed out.

“What do you do, right? You’ve got to eat,” Reinhardt said.

So he wants people to understand the options of healthy foraging.

“You don’t want to go out and bombard nature, but there’s foods available out there,” Reinhardt said. “But you can also grow your own. It’s a great time to learn how to hunt and fish.

“These are the things that are going to get us through.”

Eating healthy, indigenous foods, he said, can help people lose weight and maximize vitamins and minerals in their diets.

Again, Reinhardt said this is important in a scenario such as the COVID-19 pandemic when an individual’s immunity has to be at its peak.

The new modules are available through NMU’s Continuing Education and Workforce Development online course system. Stephanie Zadroga-Langlois of CEWD and Matt Smock of Instructional Design, Technology and Media were instrumental in coordinating the required logistics to offer the courses.

The CEWD office focuses on professional, workforce development and personal training, and delivering opportunities for anyone interested in continuing their education, updating their skills or participating in professional development.

Schuiling said the COVID-19 modules, with their emphasis on collaboration and innovation, are the first courses to come out of NMU’s new SISU Institute for Innovation and Transformational Education.

Approved by the NMU Board of Trustees in December, the SISU Institute is involved in the design-thinking process of creating or transforming academic programs. It cultivates a collaborative, interdisciplinary campus culture that supports novel ideas and the freedom to be visionary and entrepreneurial.

To access the COVID-19 modules, visit https://www.nmu.edu/continuingeducation/.