Survivor, Canada Style: Overcoming our Environment

Gary Simons, Ontario

INTENDED GRADE/SUBJECT AREA

Grade 12 Canadian Studies or Native Studies class, but can be easily adopted for Grade 7 Social Studies, Grade 11 Civilizations in History, or for a unit on local history

CONCEPTS

Developing historical imagination and appreciation; identifying and capitalizing on local resources; overcoming cultural preconceptions in order to survive; early ways of life and abilities of First Peoples; challenges of the Canadian environment.

INSTRUCTIONAL OUTCOMES

Students will:

• • identify the major survival challenges local first peoples faced;
• • identify the means local peoples used to overcome these challenges;
• • develop an appreciation for the intelligence and abilities of the First Peoples;
• • asses how and why our way of life today is very different than that of early First Peoples by appreciating how difficult these challenges are for people accustomed to a modern high technology culture.

RECOMMENDED TIME FRAME

Four one-hour classes, with the following suggested allotment:

• Class 1: Explain the background to the problem and begin the simulation.
• Class 2: Continue the team work and add enrichments, ie. the sample matierals for the students to use and out-of class activities to enhance the students' awareness of the challenges.
• Class 3: View the students' results and begin a teacher-centered take-up of historical answers.
• Class 4: Enhance learning with a good video on First Peoples.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

It is important to strees that the students cannot use any modern technology. Eyeglasses cannot be used to start fires. Metal from belt buckles or other sources cannot become a tool. Students can only use locally available materials. It helps to have slides of local forests, or to even bring in local rocks, berries, tree branches, etc., to stimulate thinking.

ACTIVITIES

Class 1

• • Explain the background to the problem. Have the students read the explanatory hand-out: What situation are the students in, what resources are available for them, what are the challenges they face?
• • Set the class up into teams of three to five and explain the competition.
• • Go over the "rules of the simulation and show slides of their new home (slides of local wilderness or forest).

Class 2

Add the enrichments, e.g., rock sample for tool making, wood for fire-making, other local resources. Do out-of-class activities to enhance the students' awareness of the challenges. Try:

• • starting a fire using the friction method
• • throwing wooden spears at a target
• • making and using a hand axe made from local stone
• • basket-weaving using local vines

Class 3

View the students' results. Answers should be written on large sheets of newsprint so the entire class can see their ideas. Students view each others' answers. begin a teacher-centered take-up of historical answers:

• How did local First Peoples overcome these challenges?
• In what ways do many of these solutions display high resourcefulness and intelligence? Examples:
  • • Kayaks (boats where there is no wood)
  • • Inuit caribou skin clothing (better than modern hi-tech cold weather clothes)
  • • Fish tidal tarps and deliberate animal kill zones, such as "Head Smashed-In" in Alberta
  • • Atlatyls (spears) and boomerangs (sophisticated concepts in physics employed by early peoples)

Class 4

Announce which team won. Possible prizes include certificates, pizza, etc. Enhance learning with a good video on First Peoples.

Follow-Up

Students do an individual assignment. They answer a series of questions on the survival stimulation, including an appreciation of what they learned about the abilities of our First Peoples.

MATERIALS / RESOURCES

• • a set of local area slides
• • local rocks
• • samples of wood for fire starting
• • some wooden spears
• • possibly an atlatyl or boomerang

About the Educator

Gary Simons, a senior high teacher at Thousand Islands Secondary School in Brockville, ON, has a reputation for using innovative teaching methods, such as learning outside the classroom, cross-curricular learning and multiple intelligence theories, to increase student success and make Canadian history come alive. He has developed projects such as a family budget analysis to illustrate the gravity of the Depression; Men of Courage: World War II Computer Simulation, where students experience the war as a Canadian soldier, sailor, or airman; and this Native Peoples Survival Simulation to make relevant the hardships faced by early native peoples through analysis of a similar modern-day scenario.

For scenario details, see PDF