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Getting Out on the Land |
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In a Nutshell:
Students work through a series of questions to explore how changes
in climate are affecting hunting, trapping, fishing and berry
picking around their community. They discuss what they have learned,
write about it in fiction or non-fiction form, and examine the
relationships between land, activities and culture. |
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Goal:
To develop the students’ powers of observation and to encourage
a more acute awareness of seasonal change in the environment
around their community. |
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Background Learning:
Note: You may want to have the students answer the questions
before reading High School Backgrounders #8 and #9. You may
also want to have your students read one of the Solutions Backgrounders,
so that they are left with some ideas about how they can make
a difference.
Teachers should be familiar with the basic science of climate
change and its anticipated impacts as reviewed in:
Teachers should read at least two of the backgrounders that
correspond specifically to this lesson plan:
Teachers may want to read “A Change of
Season” in
the January/February 2003 issue of Up Here (see More Information
section)
High School Students should be familiar with the basic science
of climate change and its anticipated impacts as reviewed in:
High School Students should read the backgrounders
that correspond specifically to this lesson plan:
High School Students may want to read “A
Change of Season” in the January/February 2003issue of Up Here
(see More Information
section).
Intermediate Students should be familiar with the basic science
of climate change and its anticipated impacts as reviewed in:
Intermediate Students should read the backgrounder that correspond
specifically to this lesson plan:
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Learning Outcomes:
Click on the icon for your territory to review the learning outcomes that are addressed by this lesson:
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Introduction to Lesson Plan:
“Nature is not something that is learned inside,” writes
essayist and novelist Barbara Kingsolver.
Although this lesson plan involves a series of questions, it
is intended to get students to pay more attention to what is
happening outside in their environment – whether they are
walking home from school or out moose hunting – and how
climate change translates into impacts on seasonal activities.
It may require them to ask parents, relatives or friends about
going out on the land. Not all the questions will be relevant
in each community, and you are encouraged to add your own questions
to this list.
The second part of the lesson encourages students to think about
questions of culture. A few quotes have been provided to start
the discussion.
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Activity:
- Select questions from the Question and Answer Key that
are relevant for your region. (You can find the Question and
Answer Key by clicking on the icon in the Handouts section
below. The questions are grouped for your convenience, but
you may want to group them differently or not at all. For intermediate
students, you may need to reword the questions slightly.
- Write
the questions (without the answers) on the board or on a
student worksheet, or cut up individual questions,
put them in a hat, and have individual students or groups
of three or four students draw them out of the hat.
 You
may want to lead the class in a discussion of one or two
of the questions, then get them to answer the rest
on their own or in groups - or you may want to go through
the whole list as a class with individual students or
groups of students presenting their answers.
Example Question and Answer from Winter Travel:
If the river (or lake) is frozen for a shorter period of
time, how could this affect hunting and trapping?
[People can’t get out to trap or ice fish if travel isn’t
safe or the risk of traveling increases.]
- Ask students to
write a series of paragraphs or one longer piece – fiction or non-fiction – about an event
that stems from one of these questions/issues. For example,
a student may remember that an uncle didn’t go trapping last
year because it was too warm for animals to be growing good
quality fur – so they could write a paragraph
about this.
- For High School students, consider the
following excerpt
from Up Here magazine that deals with
the impact of climate change and discuss it with
your class. You
may wish
to hand
it out as a student worksheet or to write it on the board.
“Who we are as Inuit is defined by a number of characteristics,” says
Sachs Harbour resident Rosemarie Kuptana. “When
one of those characteristics changes, such as ice
going away and not coming
back in the summer, it affects what you eat, it
affects your soul as a people.”
The most disturbing
part of all to the people of the Arctic regions is the lack of
predictability. The Inuit are experts
at adapting to their environment. But adaptation
is almost impossible, they say, when there is no pattern to follow
and the changes happen so quickly.
“The land is now a stranger, it seems, based on our
accumulated knowledge,” Frank Anolok of Cambridge
Bay commented at an elders’ conference in Nunavut.
Ingrid Nielsen, “A
Change of Season,” Up Here,
January/February 2003, Vol. 19, Number 1, pp. 58-63.
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Handouts:
Click on the icon for the handout that supports this lesson – Teacher
Handout: Question and Answer Key. |
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Student Web-Exchange:
Students can post their questions and answers, as well as their
reports, on the Student
Web-Exchange. Click on the icon for information
on how to post material. |
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Evaluation:
Evaluate students on their participation and on written responses
to the questions. |
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Enrichment Ideas:
Drama
Charades: Write the questions, with their answers, on individual
pieces of paper. Fold them up and put them in a container. Divide
students into two teams, and play charades. The teams take turns
drawing a question and answer out of the container, and must
act it out for their team. The time it takes for the team to
figure out which question they are acting out is recorded. At
the end, the team with the least time wins.
Art
Pictionary: Write the questions, with their answers, on individual
pieces of paper. Fold them up and put them in a container. Divide
students into two teams, and play Pictionary! The teams take
turns selecting a question and answer out of the container, and
must draw it on a whiteboard or flipchart for their team. The
time it takes for their team to figure out which question they
are acting out is recorded. At the end, the team with the least
time wins.
Social Studies
Cartomania: Visit the “Sensitivity of
River Regions to Climate Change” website of Natural Resources
Canada. (http://atlas.gc.ca/site/english/maps/climatechange/).
Students can select the region they want to view, and can zoom
in or out to see areas at risk of permafrost reduction. They
can also select a number of other characteristics to look at.
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About the Author:
Libby Gunn lived in the Northwest Territories for 14 years.
She was curator at Fort Smith’s Northern Life Museum and spent
many years developing and delivering interpretive programs for
Wood Buffalo National Park. She is a certified trainer with Interpretation
Canada and and is the author of Thebacha Trails, a natural history
guide to the region around Fort Smith, NWT.
Libby has also worked at Nahanni National Park, as a reporter
for the Yukon News, and as a Wildlife Viewing Technician for
Yukon Environment. She is currently a park warden at Wood Buffalo
National Park.
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