What do you believe is the most important technological development that Canada is currently
playing a leading role in exploring or contributing to? Why? We have all of today as well as part of tomorrow's class to conduct this investigation. Here's the site for ‘Sustainable Development Technology Canada’ to help you get started.
Today we looked more closely at the resources required and the waste generated to produce hamburger. This type of analysis will be important for your final project this semester, so treat this activity as a practice.
Finally we looked at a trade deal called CETA, which involves Canada and the European Union. Will this be good or bad for Canada? Have a look at these resources and decide for yourself:
Today we debriefed the information we got from last week's ecological footprint activity. How many planets did you need to support your lifestyle? Here are some of the classes's results:
4
2.5
2.6
1.9
1.4
2.9
The average for Ontario is 3.58 planets.
How many hectares does your personal footprint take up? Here are some results from the class:
5.9
4.0
4.8
6.5
7.2
5.3
3.1
Again, well below the Canadian average of 8.6 hectares. However, you should expect this to change once you guys start owning your own cars and houses.
We started by finishing the Behind the Label package today. You should have a sense of how much people get paid and what kind of conditions they work in to create the clothes and shoes that we have.
Next we did a life raft activity. If you were floating on a life raft with your entire house underwater, what 10 things would you grab? Those who did not write down food, water and clothing would have died! This activity helps us sorts out the difference between needs and wants.
Then we went to the computer lab to look into our effects on the environment. Try this Ecological Footprint Calculator to find out:
Today we discussed some of the trends we saw in the map of manufacturing industries that we started yesterday.
Here are some questions we discussed:
-What trends do you see in the locations of
dominant and major areas of manufacturing?
(They are all near large urban
areas.People who work in
manufacturing live in cities.)
-What type of reasons did you come up with
for the largest industry in each province? What trends did you see?(They are tied to the resources available in each province.)
-What are the top types of
manufacturing industries in Canada? (Machinery such as cars and planes as well as mining.)
-What is the % of Canada's GDP? (11%, one of the biggest percentages)
-How many jobs are in manufacturing? (1.7
million)
So that's what we can produce in Canada. What about goods we can't make in Canada? Where do we get them from? The answer is international trade.
Finally, I gave this handout that you can start working on. Fill in the table with at least three articles of clothing from home. We will work on the rest of the handout in class.
Today we started looking into secondary industries in Canada. We made use of the atlases and mapped where the "dominant" and "major" centres of manufacturing are in Canada. We also identified the top two manufacturing industries in each province and tried to think of reasons why this may be so. Did you see any trends and connections to what we learned previously?
Next we conducted a classroom debate on the Northern Gateway Pipeline!
You divided yourself into three groups:
Those who agree with the pipeline.
Those who oppose the pipeline.
Those who were undecided.
Some good arguments were brought up and some not so good arguments were suggested. I will collect the votes and next week I will reveal which side won.
Today we finished watching Blood Diamond. Here are my answers to the questions from the handout. Your answers might be a bit different based on your own opinions.
We watched a CBC news in review segment and answered some of the questions in the handout. We also took an initial vote to see how the class felt about the pipeline before we have our debate. Here's how you voted:
Do you agree with the proposal to build the Northern Gateway Pipeline?
Yes = 7 — 35%
No = 5 — 25%
Not Sure = 8 — 40%
After we watch the videos, review the facts and have a debate, we will vote again to see if any of your opinions change.
Today we continued to watch Blood Diamond and the volume was fixed! Everything was heard loud and clear. Remember to answer the questions that came along with the movie.
At the end of the class I handed out this package on pipelines. Read the first page (Introduction) to be prepared for the class tomorrow.
We completed the natural resource jigsaw today by changing up the groups. Now, there's one person in each group who is the expert on one of the five resources. You are to share what you know with your new group and gather information from them about their resources.
At this point, you should have a map that shows where each resource is produced in Canada and 50 important points, 10 for each resource.
Take Action Logs
At this point, you should all be working on logs for your take actions project. Think back to what you did so far and write it all down. Here's a example with the details that I am looking for.
Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2:00 pm
Formed our Take action group. Members are: Mr. A, Ms. B, Mr. C, Dr. E
Monday, Mar. 3, Period 4
Library Research.
Mr. A looked at charity funding from www.random-website.com
Ms. B called the charity (416-555-2319) to ask if they need volunteers.
Thursday, Mar. 6, Period 4
Discussed Take Action with the class.
Mr. C explained to the class what our group is doing.
Wednesday, Apr. 2, 6:00pm
Dr. E called the charity (416-555-2319) to set up a time to do our project.
For the next section, we will focus on Extraction.
Extraction
Jigsaw activity
We split up into groups and each group researched their category of primary industries. Each group was to read the relevant chapter of the textbook and decide on their top 10 most important points. Each group then labelled where the industries are most important on a map of Canada.
Tomorrow, we will complete the rest of the activity by sharing between the groups.
We watched it all the way through once and took what notes you can get, but the pace of this video is really fast, so started going back through it again slowing down and stopping at certain points to make more notes. We will continue this on Monday.
First of all, we took up the Trade worksheet. At this point, you should have completed that entire handout. If you don't have it all, please talk to your group members or see me about it.
Next, we discussed the different types of industries: Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Quaternary. Here are the notes we put together in class.
Today we looked at what it means to be a developed nation. We began with colouring in a map that categorizes the countries of the world based on their levels of development. Your map should look like this:
Blue are the developed nations, orange are newly industrialized and red are developing nations. But what does all that mean? We took a day in the computer lab to do some research.
We looked at the CIA World Factbook and looked at three different countries: Canada, Brazil and Rwanda. Fill in the chart and find the definitions for each indicator.
This cartoon was made in the 90's, so some countries he sings about no longer exist. Can you spot which ones those are? Which countries exist today that he didn't sing about?
