Using this Guide

This resource has been created to help elementary teachers in British Columbia give their students a better sense of the province’s history and heritage. It consists of six lesson plans that use the “Teaching for Understanding History” pedagogical approach and employ primary and secondary materials provided by the members of the BC Museums Association. British Columbia’s past becomes meaningful for a twenty-first century student through the use of private journals, old photographs and newspaper articles. The lessons, each specifically designed for a particular grade level, cover a range of topics and time periods. Students have the opportunity to read excerpts from the journal of Captain George Vancouver and compare his first impressions of the BC coast and its people with the oral accounts handed down by descendants of the First Nations people who greeted his ships. They see what colonial Victoria and the BC interior actually looked like in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, read newspaper articles written almost a hundred years ago, and take a virtual tour through an authentically reconstructed BC General Store. By discovering how real people represented their world through pictures and writing, students have a chance to develop a meaningful personal understanding of various aspects of this province’s history.

There are six lesson plans included in this resource. In addition to incorporating a TFU methodological approach, they have been specifically tailored to address provincial Social Studies learning outcomes dealing with the history and the development of communities in British Columbia. For this reason, lessons have been written only for those grades that focus on such outcomes (e.g., grades two to six).

While the lessons have been created to address Social Studies learning outcomes, they also address a number of English Language Arts outcomes, specifically those that fall under the “Comprehend and Respond” and “Communicate Ideas and Information” headings in the British Columbia K to 7 English Language Arts Integrated Resource Package. This recognizes that many elementary teachers will integrate Social Studies and English Language Arts instruction in the classroom.

Format of the Lesson Plans
Each lesson has been organized in the following format, to make reading and implementing the procedures as straightforward as possible:

• Overview: offers a summary of the lesson topic and instructional strategy(ies) employed
• Essential Question: poses the main question students answer in the course of the lesson
• Rationale: provides a brief explanation of the purpose and value of the lesson in relation to the TFU model
• Curriculum Connection: lists the Socials Studies and English Language Arts learning outcomes addressed by the lesson
• Time Required: provides time parameters for the lesson as well as any other scheduling information the teachers may find useful
• Materials and Resources: lists the websites (if applicable), handouts, teacher resource materials, and assessment tools employed in the lesson in the order in which they are used
• Procedure: provides the step-by-step procedural information needed to carry out the activities involved in the lesson
• Assessment: offers a possible method(s) for assessing student achievement of the learning outcomes, incorporating the assessment tool included with the plan
• Extension Ideas: suggests further activities meant to reinforce achievement of the learning outcomes addressed by the lesson or provide segues into related social studies topics.

The lessons incorporate a variety of instructional strategies designed to stimulate the students’ interest and foster awareness and appreciation of what British Columbia’s past was really like. Some require the students to work independently and focus on their own research and presentation skills, while others involve group activities designed to foster teamwork and collective decision making. These strategies include:

• visual analysis (e.g., Vegetable Gardens, Past and Present, and Exploration and First Contact)
• debate (The Development of the Kootenays)
• role play (e.g., Putting BC on Track)
• key inquiry (e.g., Setting up Shop in the Far West)
• online research (A Visit to a BC General Store)
• journal writing (Exploration and First Contact, and A Visit to a BC General Store).

The lesson plans come equipped with all the handouts, teacher resource materials and assessment tools needed to conduct the procedures. Each lesson requires approximately one to three hours of class time, and can be completed over the course of two to three classes. Recognizing the variety of scheduling systems that exist within BC schools, the lessons have been organized in flexible procedural steps that enable teachers to choose their own break points and decide how much time they wish to devote to lesson activities during any one class.

Using the On-Line Resources
The lessons in this publication are designed to make the most of the growing wealth of historical photographs and primary documents being compiled by the BC Heritage Digital Collections project. Some of these lessons, (e.g., Exploration and First Contact, Putting BC on Track) contain all the necessary images and information in the form of handouts and are entirely self-contained. They can be presented by teachers without requiring students to use computer technology. Other lessons are based on online resources that students will need to access at the BC Heritage websites where they are featured (e.g., the virtual tour provided on the Kilby General Store site).

In the computer-supported lessons, it is not necessary for all students to have continuous access to a computer throughout the entire lesson. Rather, the lessons have been designed so that students conduct on-line research or complete a computer-based activity only once or twice throughout the entire procedure. The computer research or reading analysis assignments have all been designed to take less than forty-five minutes to complete, so students can complete them during one class period or a session in your school’s computer lab. The procedural steps involving the use of a computer might be seen as useful pause points in the lesson, allowing the students to carry out the on-line activity at home or during out-of-class research time at the school or local library.