Geographical Amazing Race, Canada!

Matthew Anderson, Lucas Trotta, Garrett Klein

Date: March 5, 2015

Subject: Geography, Culture
Grade level: 5
Class: Social Studies
Time: Min 1 Hours
Task: To complete various activities and questions relating to the six regions of
Canada.

Prerequisite Knowledge:
This lesson is intended as a wrap up activity for the unit of Canadian
Geography. Students will need to be fairly well versed in each of the regions of
Canada in order to be able to answer the questions at each station as well as
brainstorm questions for their own assigned region.

Learner Outcomes:

Students will:

Identify Canadian geographical regions and learn associated cultural and

natural facts.

Develop a deeper understanding of the various geographical regions within

Canada.

Work cooperatively in groups to achieve a common goal.

Complete "pit stops" that are interdisciplinary and engage in other fields of

academia such as math, and physical education.

Explore distances between Canada's cities and geographical regions.

Connections to Programs of Study:

Values and Attitudes
Students will:
5.1.1 value Canadas physical geography and natural environment:
appreciate the variety and abundance of natural resources in Canada (ER, LPP)
appreciate the diversity of geographic phenomena in Canada (LPP)
appreciate how the land sustains communities and the diverse ways that people
have of

living with the land (GC, LPP)

appreciate the influence of the natural environment on the growth and
development of
Canada (LPP)
appreciate the geographic vastness of Canada (LPP)
Knowledge and Understanding
Students will:

5.1.2 examine, critically, the physical geography of Canada by exploring

and reflecting upon the
following questions and issues:
What are the major geographical regions, landforms and bodies of water in
Canada? (LPP)
How do landforms, bodies of water and natural resources affect the quality of life
in
Canada? (LPP)
What are the differences and similarities among the geographical regions of
Canada? (LPP)

 How is the geographical region they live in different from other regions of Canada?
(LPP)
What are the factors that determine climate in the diverse geographical regions of
Canada
(e.g., latitude, water, mountains)? (LPP)

Students will:
5.1.3 analyze how people in Canada interact with the environment by
exploring and reflecting
upon the following questions and issues:
In what ways do natural resources and the physical geography of a region
determine the
establishment of communities? (ER, LPP)
How are natural resources used, exchanged and conserved in Canada? (ER, LPP)
Whose responsibility should it be to ensure the preservation of Canadas national
parks and
protected areas? (C, ER, LPP)

Introduction:
One way to introduce this lesson plan is to show the students some audio
visuals (Case and Clark, 2013). First the teacher can show the students a film to
engage them with the geographical regions of Canada. Then a segment of "The
Amazing Race" can be shown to provide the students with some context for what
they will be doing. Doing so will stimulate the students interest in the activity.

Body of Lesson:
Students will "begin" the race in the Cordillera of western Canada, making
their way east towards the Atlantic/Maritime region. There will be six "pit-stops"
correlating with six cities found within the regions and the activity will involve some
aspect of that region. At each pit-stop students will have to answer six questions
assigned by the teacher relating to each region. Examples of questions could relate
to: climate, natural resources, capital cities, wildlife, or a description of the region.
Students will also be responsible for brainstorming three additional questions
relating to a region they are assigned. Students will then have to answer the
student questions as they travel to regions other than their own. In traveling across
the country, the students will consider distance from the various points. To further
relate the lesson to the amazing race students can time themselves at each station
to see how quickly they are able to complete all the tasks and if they answer
incorrectly they can be given time penalties. This also allows for prizing to occur if
you wish. The regions and related activities are as follows:

Cordillera - Students will be responsible for the transportation of the region's

largest and most abundant natural resource, lumber! Students will have to load
wood on trailers (wagons) and bring them to a destination, each group member
being responsible for one load.

Tundra - Students will have to construct an Inuit igloo with marshmallows/blocks,

that will mimic the traditional houses of the people that occupied the tundra region.
The group members are responsible for constructing one igloo as a team.

Prairie - Students will engage with the cowboy tradition of lassoing, and try to
lasso pylons representing cattle. Each group member will be responsible for roping
one steer.

Canadian Shield - Students will have to mine out natural resources from a
sandbox, representing the major industry of the region. Each group will be provided
a checklist for the required materials.

St. Lawrence/Great Lakes - Students will fish out certain colors of fish with a
magnet in a make shift river (small pool). Most of the fish will be yellow, however,

groups will need to fish out a certain amount of red ones to travel to the next
location.

Maritime/Atlantic - This station will consist of two parts. Groups must build a
paper airplane out of paper provided and have it fly a certain distance. This
represents the tourism industry associated with the historic region. Groups will also
have to construct a boat under similar circumstances, however, their boat will have
to be able to carry a certain amount of weight. This represents the import/export of
goods and materials departing and arriving for Canada.

Closure:
Each group will be responsible for a short write-up at the end of the activity
that summarizes what they have all remembered or learned about the regions of
Canada. This is also the time students can give feedback to the teacher, saying as a
group what they liked about the amazing race activity and what they did not like.
Recommendations are also considered from students so the lesson may be modified
for use with a future class. If the teacher desires, they could give rewards for
1st, 2nd, and 3rd best times, or perhaps a prize for the whole class once everyone is
finished. This can be a fun way to end the unit as students can celebrate what they
have learned and compete against one another. Doing the lesson at the end of the
unit means that is it the closure, as students will be applying previous information.

Assessment:

The students will be ranked based on how long it takes them to finish the
race. Groups of 2-3 can go at increments so other students that are waiting can
monitor the other groups going so that nobody cheats the system. After completing
a "pit stop", groups must answer correctly a question about that particular region.
Failing to answer the question may result in a penalty. Questions are generated by
the different groups prior to the exercise, who have done rudimentary internet
searches to help generate questions. The teacher will have a form of formative
assessment in how well the groups move from pit-stop to pit-stop, and through the
questions and answers given. The group summary at the end can act as a piece of
summative assessment that the teacher can use to inform student grades.

Extensions:
To further explore some of the regions, the class could take field trips
to Kananaskis to see the Cordillera region, or Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump to see
the Prairies region. Calgary is fortunate enough to live near the border of two of
Canada's six regions, providing ample opportunities to explore both in depth. Other
extensions could be in introduce students to the badlands regions and take them to
the Drumheller Natural History museum. It would also be beneficial to explore the
various natural areas in and around Calgary. You could even alter this lesson plan to
be a field trip amazing race around the different areas of Calgary.

Practicalities:
While this lesson is both excellent and engaging it does have some obstacles to be
tackled in its practice. Timing for this lesson is extremely important because there

are so many activities and if you do not correctly time the length of the lesson it
could be rushed or students could be finished early leading to them getting off task
and chaos in the classroom. In order to help facilitate the lesson in the best way
possible, it might be necessary to get some extra supervision. Another limitation for
this lesson is space, you need a large space so that students arent getting in eachothers way and so that all the activities can be set up at once. Outside is
recommended both for the wide space and to reduce the clean-up time if students
spill water or sand from the any of the activity stations. Another obstacle in putting
this lesson into practice would be the cost. The cost can add up for these activities if
you do not have a lot of resources available for these types of lessons at your school
and as such the budget of this lesson might be too high to be feasible. It is also
important to note that controversy can arise over the using of edible food in craft
building.

Rational:
For our lesson plan/activity we wanted something that would engage the
students while being a memorable experience for all. In order to do this, we had to
construct the lesson thoughtfully by providing a meaningful context for learning to
occur (Case and Clark, 2013). We took a popular television show that was relevant
to our students and turned it into a fun activity that was interdisciplinary and
incorporated physical education and mathematics. In regards the rational of
formulating our lesson, we believed it fits under student-centered/subject-centered
continuum, touching on personal development, but mainly focused on the

intellectual development of the students (Case and Clark, 2013). This is mainly due
to the multimodality of the lesson, whereby students engage in various forms of
inquiry to better understand social studies. We determined that the best way to
introduce this lesson was at the end of the geography unit, accompanied by
audiovisuals, both of the amazing race and on the geography of Canada. The
Anthology of Social Studies helped guide our lesson plan by providing a skeleton of
how to break the lesson into: objectives, introduction, body, closure, assessment,
and extension (Case and Clark, 2013).

Another aim for our lesson plan is to break away from the restrictions of a
classroom and explore a learning environment with less limitations. The "Breaking
Limitations" chapter from Meditations of Anselam: Letters From an Elder Teacher,
inspired us to create a lesson plan that cultivates a new enthusiasm beyond
limitations that moves into open spaces (Jones, 2005). We created a lesson plan
that allows students to participate in multiple modes to extend their learning
experience. It will cultivate an attitude within the students that the lessons they are
learning in school are applied in multiple ways outside of school and that
they have real world applications. This activity is aimed to keep the
students actively engaged not only intellectually, but physically as well. By going
beyond our restricted selves as teachers and changing the learning environment
from the classroom, we intend to discourage boredom in our students which
destroys inspiration. Our goal from this lesson plan is for the students to leave
school that day with a memory of a learning experience that was not only fun, but a
day they will always remember.

References:
Case, R. and Clark P. (Eds.), In The anthology of social studies: Issues and strategies
for elementary teachers (pp. 3-7). Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press.
Jones, D. (2005). Meditations of Anselam: Letters from an Elder Teacher. Calgary:
Detselig.