Earn points for each challenge your class completes. Classrooms who complete a minimum of 3 challenges will be eligible to win amazing prizes!
http://energydiet.canadiangeographic.ca/2019/main/challenges
Category Archives: grade 7
Canada’s Coolest School Trip – Win an all-expense paid trip for your class
Canada’s Coolest School Trip 9th edition is headed to Kootenay National Park in British Columbia in June 2020! From June 8 to 12 the winning class will explore this special place, all expenses paid! The contest is open to grade 6,7, 8 & 9
- To enter, have your class create a video showing us how they are conservation champions linked to cultural and/or environmental conservation in their community.
- Winners will be selected from a short-list of 15 videos, including the Top-10 videos selected by public voting and 5 additional Staff Picks entries.
Upload your video by February 28, 2020.
Want to know all of the amazing prizes you are competing for? Click here for more information on all of this year’s prizes.
Register for Canada’s Coolest School Trip contest today!
Registration for the 25th Canadian Geographic Challenge is open
This year thousands of students in grades 4-10 and 16 to 19 years old will compete to be the best, test their geographic knowledge and skills, and better understand the world that they live in.
Canadian Geographic Education launched the Canadian Geographic Challenge, formerly the Great Canadian Geography Challenge, in 1995 as a way to get students interested in geography. Since then, the challenge has grown from 20 participating schools to more than 500, and has reached more than two million students across Canada.
Now in its 25th year, the competition is continuously evolving, melding traditional learning styles with geographic literacy skills and new technology. The support of Trebek Family Foundation has meant the competition can continue to be accessible, relevant and engaging for all students.
The challenge is comprised of three levels to reach a wide age range.
Level 1 is open to students in grades 4-6. It focuses on developing fundamental geographic facts and skills and igniting passion in students’ early academic careers.
Students participate at the classroom and school level, finishing the competition by naming one School Champion. All School Champions receive a certificate, medal and one-year subscription to Canadian Geographic.
Level 2 encourages students in grades 7-10 to push the limits of their geographic knowledge and apply geographic thinking skills.
The competition begins in the classroom and progresses to name a School Champion. The School Champion is then invited to compete at the provincial/territorial level.
Of the territorial/provincial winners, a total of 20 of Canada’s best geography students will be invited to participate in the National Final in May 2020. More information about the National Final will be released later this year.
Level 2 School Champions receive a certificate, a medal and a one-year subscription to Canadian Geographic magazine. Provincial and territorial champions receive a prize package.
Level 3 is open to all students ages 16-19 before June 2020 who reside in Canada. The competition is split into two phases.
PHASE 1: The first phase is an online test consisting of 100 multiple-choice and true-or-false questions. This phase is divided into two parts, each containing 50 questions. Students may complete the two parts at different times if they wish. The scores of the two parts will be weighed equally and added together for a total mark out of 100. Scores will not be shared with participants under any circumstances.
PHASE 2: The second phase of the competition will be a written fieldwork project. The twenty (20) students who score the highest on the online test will be contacted with additional information about the second phase of the competition, which will focus on field work.
The second phase of the competition will be submitted online and marked by a team of Can Geo Education teachers based on a rubric that will be made available to all participating students.
PHASE 3: The top six (6) students from phase 2 will move onto third phase of the competition, an interview conducted by the Team Canada leaders who will be accompanying the team and getting them ready for the International Geography Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey, August 11-17, 2020. The goal of the interview is to determine the student’s commitment level and how they would fit in the team dynamic.
The four students with the top scores in the third phase will be asked to join Team Canada. Members of Team Canada will attend the International Geography Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey, August 11-17, 2020. All required expenses for the international competition (including travel, accommodation, uniform, food, etc.) will be covered by the RCGS.
Although the Canadian competition is available in both English and French, the International GeoOlympiad is only administered in English. Therefore, students selected for Team Canada must be proficient and comfortable testing in English.
Canada Votes! Toronto Star Election Guide
This learning material is designed to give students tools to research how we elect our governments in Canada.
It includes a booklet of basic information about the federal government, introductory texts related to elections, and a student activity book with basic facts. It also includes some games, multimedia activities, and directed research.The “Facts About Your Federal Government” booklet provides an overview of the federal government. It outlines the basic parts of government and the election process. It is a supplement to the activity pages.
This program includes a culminating activity, which incorporates spoken-word poetry. Have students read and/or listen to the poem below.
Download the free teacher guide and student resource below
Spoken-word – Culminating Activity
CBC: The Great Human Odyssey – Lesson Plans by Tammy Gaudun
The Great Human Odyssey
http://www.cbc.ca/greathumanodyssey/
Lesson Plans
Introduction
The Great Human Odyssey explores the unlikely survival and the miraculous emergence of Homo sapiens as the world’s only global species. Ancient climate research has revealed that we evolved during the most volatile era since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Just like the many other kinds of human who once shared our world, we should have died away. Instead, our species survived to populate every corner of the planet, against all the odds.
The series is an excellent introduction the the Grade 8 Geography curriculum. It provides a historical context for many issues addressed in the the Ontario Curriculum, such as:
- The ways in which the physical environment and climate change have influenced our earliest ancestors and their settlement patterns.
- A look at sustainable communities and the relationship between our ancestors and the environment.
- The series raises questions about the quality of life of our ancestors, allowing students to compare and contrast to other communities and times in the world.
Because the documentary series is a reflection of the lives of our ancestors, it is important for students to be able to compare and contrast some of these practices to modern times, and apply this knowledge to help make predictions about the future of the human species.
This Guide for Educators contains several components. For the three episodes, there are content overviews, viewing questions, and critical thinking questions, a computer-based assignment, which involves three community case studies for the first two episodes.
- The Viewing Questions are meant to be answered by students while watching each episode, or in discussion after watching the episode.
- The Critical Thinking Challenges are meant to be “big picture” questions that can be posed to students at any point during instruction.
- Each episode also contains a Web Component, where students use technology to find maps and to examine one of the three Case Studies, using the interactive World of Extremes website. After watching the series, students are able to participate in a virtual reality experiment, walking in the shoes of Kalahari Bushmen, Chukchi reindeer herders or Badjao free-divers, through the interactive web documentary.
Grade 7 Geography Curriculum (2013): Text version
Here’s a link to the 2013 Grade 7 Geography Curriculum, but I’ve pulled out just the grade 7 section, in text format, for those of you who prefer a digital copy or like to copy and paste.
- A. Physical Patterns in a Changing World
- B.Natural Resources Around the World: Use & Sustainability
A. PHYSICAL PATTERNS IN A CHANGING WORLD
OVERALL EXPECTATIONS
By the end of Grade 7, students will:
A1. Application: analyse some challenges and opportunities presented by the physical environment and ways in which people have responded to them (FOCUS ON: Spatial Significance; Interrelationships)
A2. Inquiry: use the geographic inquiry process to investigate the impact of natural events and/or human activities that change the physical environment, exploring the impact from a geographic perspective (FOCUS ON: Geographic Perspective)
A3. Understanding Geographic Context: demonstrate an understanding of significant patterns in Earth’s physical features and of some natural processes and human activities that create and change those features (FOCUS ON: Patterns and Trends; Spatial Significance)
Ontario Teachers' Blog 