For the grade 4 Heritage and Identity: Early Societies strand, our group had discussed having students create their own civilization. Prior to this activity, students would have had the opportunity to study several early societies as a class, to do a small group task studying the aspects of one particular society, and to see artifacts from the civilizations through a field trip to the ROM. All of this will lead to the culminating task where they will have to draw on their knowledge of the cultures and eras of early societies to create their own in a particular geographic location and era.
In this culminating task students will have to explore what resources would be available in their geographic location, what technologies would exist, what other societies would they trade with, what might they trade, what types of structures would their people build, what sorts of clothing would they wear, what sort of hierarchy would there be, and what might their religion be. Cross-curricular connections could be drawn by incorporating environmental sustainability from the Science curriculum; Art through the use of music, art, dance, and visual arts to represent their civilization; and finally a written, oral, or media text to display their work in a showcase or gallery walk.
The big idea for our unit was that the environment played an important role in the development of early societies. Originally we had considered having the big idea examine how early societies differed, however we felt that the revised idea encapsulated this comparison as well. In class we did a placemat activity in which we wrote our big idea on a chart paper and other groups asked questions and suggested revisions. One of the biggest questions that arose was what constitutes "development?" Is Canada more developed now because we have bigger cities, or was it more developed hundreds of years with the sustainable practices of the indigenous people?
The most contentious aspect of our big idea was the cause and effect of the phrasing. Should it be phrased to reflect that the environment influenced people, or that people influenced the environment? There were many views on the topic, however I personally felt, and still feel, that while people have an effect on the environment, this effect is dependent largely on human settlement patterns, which are in turn dictated largely by environmental conditions. It was described as a chicken or the egg sort of dilemma, and I would be inclined to agree.
In this culminating task students will have to explore what resources would be available in their geographic location, what technologies would exist, what other societies would they trade with, what might they trade, what types of structures would their people build, what sorts of clothing would they wear, what sort of hierarchy would there be, and what might their religion be. Cross-curricular connections could be drawn by incorporating environmental sustainability from the Science curriculum; Art through the use of music, art, dance, and visual arts to represent their civilization; and finally a written, oral, or media text to display their work in a showcase or gallery walk.
The big idea for our unit was that the environment played an important role in the development of early societies. Originally we had considered having the big idea examine how early societies differed, however we felt that the revised idea encapsulated this comparison as well. In class we did a placemat activity in which we wrote our big idea on a chart paper and other groups asked questions and suggested revisions. One of the biggest questions that arose was what constitutes "development?" Is Canada more developed now because we have bigger cities, or was it more developed hundreds of years with the sustainable practices of the indigenous people?
The most contentious aspect of our big idea was the cause and effect of the phrasing. Should it be phrased to reflect that the environment influenced people, or that people influenced the environment? There were many views on the topic, however I personally felt, and still feel, that while people have an effect on the environment, this effect is dependent largely on human settlement patterns, which are in turn dictated largely by environmental conditions. It was described as a chicken or the egg sort of dilemma, and I would be inclined to agree.
