Equity and Inclusive Education

                It is important for students to understand how we can affect the environment around us.  Additionally we must provide opportunities for students to explore how the environment is changing around us the more society evolves.  To see how their actions can positively or negatively affect the environment is something that students can witness first hand, and thus be able to better understand the long term effects.

                Incorporating this into our unit plan, we have decided to have students, along with creating their own society, be able to build their society with various materials.  In doing so, they will be able to see how the environment around their civilization is effected as well as how their civilization is effected by the environment.  It is our hope that from this project. students will understand how we must work in harmony with nature in order to preserve natural resources and not harm the planet that we all live on.

Primary and Secondary Documents

                It is important for students to understand how we can affect the environment around us.  Additionally we must provide opportunities for students to explore how the environment is changing around us the more society evolves.  To see how their actions can positively or negatively affect the environment is something that students can witness first hand, and thus be able to better understand the long term effects.

Steven Johnson.  "Treasure Map".  April 11, 2015.  Source found here.

                Incorporating this into our unit plan, we have decided to have students, along with creating their own society, be able to build their society with various materials.  In doing so, they will be able to see how the environment around their civilization is effected as well as how their civilization is effected by the environment.  It is our hope that from this project. students will understand how we must work in harmony with nature in order to preserve natural resources and not harm the planet that we all live on.

Environmental Education / Field Trips

                It is important for students to understand how we can affect the environment around us.  Additionally we must provide opportunities for students to explore how the environment is changing around us the more society evolves.  To see how their actions can positively or negatively affect the environment is something that students can witness first hand, and thus be able to better understand the long term effects.

                Incorporating this into our unit plan, we have decided to have students, along with creating their own society, be able to build their society with various materials.  In doing so, they will be able to see how the environment around their civilization is effected as well as how their civilization is effected by the environment.  It is our hope that from this project. students will understand how we must work in harmony with nature in order to preserve natural resources and not harm the planet that we all live on.

Aboriginal Education

              Integrating aboriginal education is something that should be seriously considered when creating a social studies unit plan.  Especially as Canadians, we must understand our own heritage from which FNMI have played a significant part in.  For our social studies unit plan however, it was difficult for us to try and incorporate aboriginal education in because the list of early societies did not involve any cultures relating to FNMI.  So instead, what we would like to do is incorporate aboriginal education into our unit by providing a learning environment that reflects on the values of aboriginal culture.  Working together is something we want students to focus on in understanding that collaboration can lead to other successes.

Financial Literacy

               Given the opportunity to construct a unit plan with some colleagues is an absolute pleasure.  Creating a unit plan on our own is definitely doable, however being able to create one with others gives us the opportunity to listen to other ideas which can lead to a more interactive and effective unit.

Geralt.  "Dollar Sign".  February 14, 2015.  Source found here.

                For our unit, we chose the grade 4 unit on early societies.  Collaborating in our group brought up the suggestion that students can create their own society based on the information learn about other early societies.  In order to collaborate effectively, it was important for our group to be in constant communication with each other.  We chose to use google docs because this way we could edit each other’s information and give suggestions more readily. 

                We are excited to create our own unit plan and hope for others to use it in their future teaching careers!

Unit Planning

               Given the opportunity to construct a unit plan with some colleagues is an absolute pleasure.  Creating a unit plan on our own is definitely doable, however being able to create one with others gives us the opportunity to listen to other ideas which can lead to a more interactive and effective unit.

                For our unit, we chose the grade 4 unit on early societies.  Collaborating in our group brought up the suggestion that students can create their own society based on the information learn about other early societies.  In order to collaborate effectively, it was important for our group to be in constant communication with each other.  We chose to use google docs because this way we could edit each other’s information and give suggestions more readily. 

                We are excited to create our own unit plan and hope for others to use it in their future teaching careers!

Inquiry Based Learning

Inquiry based learning offers an opportunity for students to seek what they want to learn through a series of questions.  This week we had the opportunity to conduct a lesson that involved inquiry which allowed for the class to pose questions about what it is to be Canadian.  In order for students to broaden their range of questions, we offered a means for which students can pose their questions for others to see through an online resource.   This gave everyone an opportunity to think about new questions that they may not have thought of otherwise.

IITManojit.  "Question Mark".  October 16, 2010.  Source found here.

                We want students to constantly be questioning things.  It is through questioning that students can learn things and perhaps retain better since it’s something that they were truly curious about.