Unit Plan reflection

I collaborated with 3 other peers to create a a grade 6 unit plan titled What does it mean to be Canadian? 
It took us quite a few weeks to complete 12 lesson plans, including a culminating task. I'm glad that I was able to work with a group to create this unit plan, because we put a lot of work into it. There were so many things we had to get done for each lesson, so I am grateful I had time to figure out how to create my first unit plan with like-minded and creative peers. 

We agreed on the Big Idea (What does it mean to be Canadian?) unanimously, but decided what topics we would cover in 12 lessons was the difficult part. We wanted our Big Idea to be open-ended to start our inquiry with our students and get them thinking, but when we started to plan our lessons it was vague and we didn't know where to start. We consulted the curriculum document and had many brainstorming sessions before we narrowed it down to 12 individual lessons:

1.  An introduction lesson to open the inquiry - why do people come to Canada? 
2. How has Canada’s physical geography contributed to Canada’s identity and how Canadian communities have settled each region. 
3. What aspects of Canadian identity is represented in art? 
4. What does it mean to be multicultural? 
5. Different groups may experience the same development or event in different ways.
6. What is inclusive? Is education a right?
7. How do different regions of Canada influence the food you eat?
8. How has the development of Canada affected our environment?
9. How do stereotypes and prejudice affect a person or a community?
10. Why do people come to Canada as tourists, short-term visitors, and immigrants?
11. How has Canada been represented in the media in history? How has that view changed? 
12. Culminating task - What does it mean to be Canadian?

We split up the work so we only had to do 3 lesson plans each, but we still consulted each other and brainstormed ideas, so we never had to do too much on our own. We included everything we learned during our Social Studies course:

• Cross-curricular - all of our lessons attempts to connect two, or more, subject areas to make cross-curricular connections
• Inquiry based learning - we open with an inquiry and investigate our question throughout the unit 
• Financial literacy - In lesson 6, we explore the costs of education and what it takes to attend higher education in Canada. We compare (through role playing) what the costs are for various groups in Canada, and graph our results.
• Environmental education - In lesson 8 we examine perspectives on the environment past and present
• Field trips - In lesson 9, we will be traveling to Brantford to learn how the distorted images of First nations peoples in the past and present, have affected their communities and identities.
• Primary resources - we investigate maps, articles, talk with guest speakers, and other primary documents throughout this unit
• Equity and inclusive education - we respectfully investigate the perspectives of multiple groups in Canada and allow students to identify bias, and foster respect for all people

Overall, I think we worked really well together and were able to bring out creative and innovative ideas to create the best unit plan we could. I'm very proud of the work we did together and am excited for when I get to actually teach this unit to students in the classroom.

Environmental Education

They talk a lot about learning and using longitude and latitude because it is universal. This relates to learning about maps in Social Studies. Environmental education also relates to FMNI culture because it talks about how everything is connected and how important nature is in our lives. It is extremely important for our students to learn about the environment so they care about it. They need to care about it so they can help save the planet in the future and get their families/community to care about the environment as well. Learning about it out in the field is more engaging for the students because they become part of the environment and can actually see how they connect to it. They will care more and learn more if they can see and do things themselves instead of being stuck in a classroom. Things become real to them when they are outside and see nature ‘in action’.

·      At my placement school the grade 7 and 8’s were doing an inquiry for science to build an environmentally friendly playground that had sturdy structures, but were also cost effective, fun, and eco-friendly. Even though this was for science, I think it could also be applied to Social Studies and the environment. They had a guest speaker come in from a company that creates these types of playgrounds. I loved this idea because it got the students excited about building structures, but also creating environment friendly playing equipment for the school community. I think that this would be a great way to incorporate environmental studies that apply to cross-curricular studies, as well as counting as a field study outside of the school.