Grade
5: BC Communities and Their Resources
Suggested
Procedure
1. Introduce the idea of "community" as a shared experience
of a particular place. Ask students to describe the school and their
neighbourhoods as communities and to brainstorm what elements define
a community.
2. Using the
introductory discussion as a way of moving toward a more complex
notion of community, explain how a specific geographic environment
influences human culture(s), and, conversely, is influenced by it.
The definition that emerges would ideally stress these complex interactions
through time and emphasize how technologies play a role in shaping
both culture and environment.
3. Assign groups
or pairs of students to "travel" to the communities of
Chilliwack, Wells, and Yale by accessing the websites about these
communities. Alternatively, copy relevant pages from the websites
for distribution and desk-based work.
4. Make copies
of and distribute the student handout I
am the Land for students to work with in groups or pairs. Instruct
the groups or pairs to answer the questions by using the websites
or the copied material. Some of the questions require them to engage
in creative thinking about the life experience of these British
Columbia towns, their past and present communities, and their use
and alteration of the natural environment.
5. Collect the
student handout I am the Land when the groups or pairs have completed
their work. Use the answers as a basis for class discussion of the
various aspects of life in the communities, including, for example:
- the economic
and social impact of a sudden influx of immigrants or migrants
on Aboriginal peoples and/or a small established community
- the development
of modern technologies and their effects on the natural environment
- the alteration
of natural balances developed over long periods of time in contrast
to sudden and dramatic interventions by human activities and communities
- the preservation
of the past, why and how communities variously recall their pasts,
and how approaches to the past might differ.
6. Focusing
on the diverse past and present economic activities in the towns
(agriculture in Chilliwack, mining in Wells and Yale), stimulate
a discussion on how natural resources affect the interdependence
of communities. Highlight the impacts of different activities on
the environment, and show how they not only change how people live
but alter the land itself.
7. In order
to introduce the notion of technology, ask students to brainstorm
examples of technologies in their daily life, using the settings
that they come into contact with (e.g., the home environment, the
wider community, school), and then to imagine how, or if, these
technologies could be replaced either by simpler or more complex
ones.
8. Ask students
who have accessed the Wells and Yale websites to describe the technologies
used to exploit natural resources during the gold rushes in those
towns and student who have accessed the Chilliwack website to describe
the technologies used in traditional and in modern farming. Engage
students in a discussion about how these technologies themselves
use and derive from natural resources.
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