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CORVALLIS, Ore. - Robin Kimmerer will read from her new book, "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants," on Saturday, Oct. 19, beginning at 7:30 p.m. at Oregon State University's LaSells Stewart Center, C&E Auditorium.

She'll be joined by poet Alison Hawthorne Deming for an event celebrating the 10th anniversary of OSU Spring Creek Project's Long-Term Ecological Reflections program. The program is free and open to all.

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the majority of indigenous cultures consider plants and animals to be the oldest teachers. In "Braiding Sweetgrass," Kimmerer shows how other living things - asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass - offer people gifts and lessons.

Jane Goodall said about "Braiding Sweetgrass," "Robin Kimmerer has written an extraordinary book, showing how the factual, objective approach of science can be enriched by the ancient knowledge of the indigenous people."

Kimmerer is a Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and the founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Her first book, "Gathering Moss," was awarded the prestigious John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing.

Since its inception in 2003, Long-Term Ecological Reflections has hosted more than 40 writers-in-residence at the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, and sponsored field symposia on challenging topics such as "The Meaning of Watershed Health" and "New Metaphors for Restoration."