Assignment+One

= **Assignment One ** = = = = = **Grade Level and Subject ** Grade 5 Social Studies (B.C. Curriculum)

**Central Course Theme ** How has the interplay of politics, environment, and people shaped the development of our country?

**Essential Questions ** 1. What do we mean by the Canadian Identity? How did it develop? 2. How does our environment affect how we live and how Canada developed as a nation? 3. How and why do we organize and govern ourselves as a nation?

**Curricular Outcomes **

**1. ****What do we mean by the Canadian Identity? How did it develop? ** ** B1 ** Describe the significance of key events and factors in the development of BC and Canada, including the fur trade, the  railroad, and the Fraser/Cariboo gold rush. ** B2 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Assess why immigrants came to Canada, the individual challenges they faced, and their contributions to Canada. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> **B3** Describe the contributions of significant individuals to the development of Canada’s identity. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> D2 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Analyse the development of transportation systems in BC and Canada.

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">2. ****<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">How does our environment affect how we live and how Canada developed as a nation? ** **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">B1 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Describe the significance of key events and factors in the development of BC and Canada, including the fur trade, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;"> the railroad, and the Fraser/Cariboo gold rush **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> B2 **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> Assess why immigrants came to Canada, the individual challenges they faced, and their contributions to Canada. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> D1 ** <span style="font-family: 'PalatinoLinotype-Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Ana <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">lyse the relationship between the economic development of communities and their available resources. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">D2 **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> Analyse the development of transportation systems in BC and Canada. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> E1 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Describe the major physical regions of Canada. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> E2 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Describe the location of natural resources within BC and Canada, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">including fish and marine resources, forests, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> minerals, and energy resources. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> E3 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Explain why sustainability is important. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> E4 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Analyse environmental effects of settlement in early BC and Canada.

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">3. ****<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">How and why do we organize and govern ourselves as a nation? ** **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> C1 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Demonstrate knowledge of how Confederation formed Canada as a nation. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> C2 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Describe levels, responsibilities, and the election of government in Canada. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> C3 **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> Identify the distinct governance structures of First Nations in Canada.

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Skills and Processes Outcomes ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">The following outcomes will be essential to the development and demonstration of understanding in all of the above outcomes.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> **A1** Apply critical thinking skills – including hypothesizing, comparing, imagining, inferring, identifying patterns, and <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> summarizing – to a range of problems and issues. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> **A2** Use maps and timelines to locate, interpret, and represent major physical, political, and economic features of BC and Canada. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> A3 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Gather a body of information from a variety of primary and secondary sources. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> A4 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Create a presentation on a selected topic. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> A5 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Defend a position on a selected topic. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> A6 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Implement a plan of action to address a selected school, community, or national problem or issue.

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">The B.C. Grade 5 Curriculum can be found at **

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">[] ** **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Rationale **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">The decision to focus on Grade 5 was an easy one for me, as I am currently a Grade 4 and 5 classroom teacher, and I want the work I do to be relevant to my work in the classroom. I chose Social Studies for more complex reasons. I find the Social Studies curriculum to be fascinating, but large, poorly organized, and unwieldy in an elementary setting. I do not feel that I do it justice in my class. My school has no Social Studies textbooks, so everything we do has to be based on the resources available in our school library or online. My school does not have much in the way of library time, so if I want to find out what relevant resources are available, it is up to me to search for and discover them. If I want our teacher librarian to purchase new resources (assuming funds were available), I need to identify quality resources that would effectively meet my needs. I want to improve the engagement of my students in the Social Studies curriculum, and this is a structured opportunity for me to do so.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">The BC curriculum is not organized into thematic units like Alberta`s seems to be. I had to take the time to figure out how isolated outcomes are connected thematically, and what the focus of the entire course could be. This will help me in the future to plan for more effective and complete implementation of the Social Studies curriculum. It will also help me to know what types of resources will be helpful when developing a hypothetical resource collection for this course. Understanding of the curriculum is essential to planning for instruction, and to building a useful, complete collection of learning resources.