The Story of a Soldier project is an investigation into the life of a local resident and an exploration of local history during the First World War.

This episode of the Teaching Canada’s History podcast is part of our series speaking with the finalists of the 2023 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award recognizes excellence and innovation in the teaching of Canadian history. To learn more, visit CanadasHistory.ca/Awards [https://gate.sc/?url=http://CanadasHistory.ca/Awards&token=175f86-1-1772058285628].

The Story of a Soldier project focuses on local history

Jo Anne Broders organized and facilitated an international collaboration between her grades 9 and 11 students and a classroom in Germany.

This episode of the Teaching Canada’s History podcast is part of our series speaking with the finalists of the 2023 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award recognizes excellence and innovation in the teaching of Canadian history. To learn more, visit CanadasHistory.ca/Awards [https://gate.sc/?url=http://CanadasHistory.ca/Awards&token=90786-1-1772058225115].

Jo Anne Broders brings international education to her classroom

To reflect on the transformative summer of Montreal 1976, Canada’s History recently brought together two Canadians with thoughts to exchange. Heather Hiscox, a 43-year veteran of the broadcasting industry, spent two decades as the face of CBC Morning Live and has covered 10 Olympic Games. Richard “Dick” Pound is the longest-serving member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). An Olympic swimmer in the 1960 Summer Games in Rome, Pound was a key member of the Canadian Olympic Association (COA) for the 1976 Summer Games and has been a defining force in the Olympic Movement for more than 40 years. 

For even more Canadian history, subscribe to any of our free newsletters at CanadasHistory.ca/Newsletters

Dick Pound shares his Olympic memories

In Wendy Driscoll’s History in the Baking project, her middle school class wonders how the conversation about Canadian Confederation may have differed with other voices.

Wendy Driscoll’s History in the Baking project rethinks Confederation

Michel Blades (Ranch Learning Centre, Lamont, Alberta)

Finalist in the 2021 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching

For more information about the award visit  CanadasHistory.ca/TeachingAward [https://www.canadashistory.ca/TeachingAward]

The  Keeping Tobacco Sacred project, started by Michel Blades at the Ranch  Learning Centre in Lamont, Alberta, is a reconnection to land, culture,  language, and identity for youth growing up in government care. Inspired  by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, this  project is ultimately a grassroots answer to the assimilation of  Indigenous people that resulted from the Residential School System and  the legacy of their children. The process of learning to grow, cure, and  prepare tobacco from seed to offering provides students with a daily  connection to caring for oneself as well as the life of another.  Additionally, in acknowledging the length of time it takes to grow  medicines, it reinforces the importance of positively connecting the  mind, body, and spirit to protocols, language, teachings, ceremony, and  elder prayers.

The Keeping Tobacco Sacred Project

Maliesha Muralidharan designed a unit plan for her grade 8 history class that shifted the focus on how students learn to allow them to showcase their knowledge through art, drama, pictures, quotes, social media, debates and rants.

This episode of the Teaching Canada’s History podcast is part of our series speaking with the finalists of the 2023 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award recognizes excellence and innovation in the teaching of Canadian history. To learn more, visit CanadasHistory.ca/Awards [https://gate.sc/?url=http://CanadasHistory.ca/Awards&token=207186-1-1772058404389].

Testing history knowledge through art projects

Shannon Rankin's First World War artifact project requires students to create and compose critical reflections on and interpretations of Canada’s First World War story.

This episode of the Teaching Canada’s History podcast is part of our series speaking with the finalists of the 2023 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award recognizes excellence and innovation in the teaching of Canadian history. To learn more, visit CanadasHistory.ca/Awards [https://gate.sc/?url=http://CanadasHistory.ca/Awards&token=fbc985-1-1772058421531].

Shannon Rankin's Museum Display Project helps students reflect on First World War

Ben Gross and Dan Kunanec (Don Mills Collegiate Institute, Toronto, Ontario)
Recipient of the 2024 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching
For more information about the award visit CanadasHistory.ca/TeachingAward [https://www.canadashistory.ca/teachingaward]

Ben Gross (pictured right) and Dan Kunanec (pictured left) developed an interdisciplinary collaboration  between a World History course and a Hospitality and Tourism course.  Anchoring learning in food history, students studied Ashkenazi and  Sephardic life in Europe and how that history travelled to Canada with  survivors of the Holocaust. After weeks of preparation, the classes  combined for a day of cooking with Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter. In  the wood-fired oven, students cooked cholent, challah, and kugel with  Pinchas. The focus of the conversation was Pinchas’s memories of food in  Poland as a young boy and his experiences of change and adaptation when  he came to Canada. The students created a website documenting their  learning, including recognition of deep connections between the  experiences that they learned about and those of their own families.

Interdisciplinary collaboration between World History and Hospitality/Tourism

David Lynch (St. Michaels University School, Victoria, British Columbia)
Finalist of the 2024 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching
For more information about the award visit CanadasHistory.ca/TeachingAward [https://www.canadashistory.ca/teachingaward]

Over the past six years, David Lynch has developed a year-long, multi-stage project-based approach to teaching B.C’s Social Studies 10. “Through their Eyes” engages students with the historical thinking concepts as they explore twentieth-century Canadian history through the real-life experiences of 225+ (extra)ordinary Canadians. These diverse individuals and their divergent experiences act as an enlightening window into the past, humanizing events and equipping students with concrete evidence that they use to assess, challenge, and even develop their own historical explanations and narratives.

Real-life experiences of (extra)ordinary Canadians

Sarah Stewart (St. Joseph Scollard Hall, North Bay, Ontario)
Finalist of the 2024 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching
For more information about the award visit CanadasHistory.ca/TeachingAward [https://www.canadashistory.ca/teachingaward]

Sarah Stewart asked her students to explore topics such as the ‘60s Scoop, the Métis struggle for recognition, the 1969 "White Paper,” and the High Arctic Relocation for an awareness campaign project. The purpose of this project was to encourage students to examine key issues that Indigenous Peoples in Canada have faced and to develop an understanding of how extensively racism has influenced government policies and society. In part one of this project, students filled in a planning sheet to gather information about their topic, determined its historical significance, and identified their target audience. Students utilized several historical thinking concepts to understand the context in which these injustices occurred. In part two, students wrote a recruitment letter to a potential spokesperson who could provide a platform to assist them in publicizing their message. In part three, students chose a media form (brochure, poster, podcast, etc.) to create their awareness campaign.

Historical thinking concepts applied to awareness campaign

Canada's History magazine editorial director Jacqueline Kovacs interviews special guests for an in-depth look at the people and events that shaped our nation. Produced by the award-winning team at Canada's History magazine. For even more Canadian history, subscribe to any of our free newsletters at CanadasHistory.ca/Newsletters.

Theme music: Looking for the Summer

Canada's History Podcast

This special podcast series features some of the finalists for the Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Teaching [https://www.canadashistory.ca/awards/governor-general-s-history-awards/about-the-awards]. The award recognizes teachers from across the country for their exceptional work in teaching Canadian history. It is also an opportunity to promote and facilitate the sharing of best practices and innovative teaching ideas within Canada’s history education community.

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Cette série spéciale de balados met en lumière quelques-uns des finalistes francophones du Prix d'histoire du Gouverneur général pour l'excellence en enseignement [https://www.histoirecanada.ca/prix/prix-d-histoire-du-gouverneur-general/au-sujet-des-prix]. Ce prix reconnaît des enseignants de partout au pays pour leur travail exceptionnel dans le domaine de l'enseignement de l'histoire canadienne. Il permet aussi de promouvoir et de faciliter le partage de pratiques exemplaires et d'idées pédagogiques novatrices au sein de la communauté canadienne de l'enseignement de l'histoire.

Canada's History

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