Mrs.Bertrend’s English Social Studies Class

On Thursday, October 28th we will be having a quiz on Lessons 6-8. Below you will find everything you need to help you prepare 🙂

When will the quiz be?

Thursday, October 28th, 2021

What will the quiz cover?

Lesson 6: ‘How is Earth’s Population Changing’?

Textbook p.18-22

What to review? 

• population, rural, urban, demography, carrying capacity, economy, birth rate, death rate, migration, and growth rate- definitions
• 8 factors that affect growth rate

Lesson 7: Population Density & Distribution

Textbook p.24-26

What to review?

• How to calculate population density
• 4 population distribution patterns
• Advantages and disadvantages of each distribution pattern

Lesson 8: What Influences Settlements?

Textbook p.32-39

• Arable land, natural factors, human factors- definitions
• Understanding natural factors and human factors (historical, political, religious, economic) and examples of each type of settlement

What will be the format?

• Definition matching
• Short answer
• Multiple-choice

Mrs. Bertrend’s Grade 6 Social Studies Class

A reminder that this Tuesday, October 26th we will have a quiz on longitude and latitude. You have been practising reading longitude and latitude for several classes and it’s time to show what you know!

What should you study?

• Study the definition of longitude, latitude, equator, and prime meridian.
• Know the unit we use to measure it (degrees!)
• You will be given a map and asked to either provide the coordinates for places or be given a place (Ex. Ottawa) and have to provide the coordinates.

Grade 7 English Social Studies Quiz

Mrs. Bertrend

Next Wednesday, October 20th we will be having a quiz. This quiz will cover the Lesson 4 & 5 material (landforms and plate tectonics) and be multiple-choice and short answers.

All the Lesson 4 & 5 material is already shared with you in our main Google Slide deck that is in your Social Studies folder in your Google Drive.

There are key vocabulary to know for the quiz, which includes:

• Plate tectonic theory
• Convention currents
• Landforms
• Mountains
• Shield
• Plateau
• Plains
• Transform plate boundary
• Divergent plate boundary
• Convergent plate boundary
• Lithosphere
• Asthenosphere

Be ready to share an example or two of the plate boundaries and each landform too.

Study a little each evening and you’ll do great!

To My Grade 8 Social Scientists!

We are going to be having a take-home Social Studies exam the week of May 31-June 4.

What can you expect on your exam?

• Section 1: Geography- choose two short answer questions. There will be 3 questions to choose from. 
• Section 2: History- choose two short answer questions. There will be 3 questions to choose from. 
• Primary source analysis- you will have to choose one source to analyze, using the primary source analysis guide

When will you receive your exam?

• Friday, May 28th

When can you work on your exam?

• You will have all of our class time between May 28th and June 4th to work on your exam. You will also need to work on it during other times you carve out during your day- like the independent work time at the end of the day. 

When do you have to hand it in?

• You must hand in your exam (share your Google Doc.) by Friday, June 4th at 1:00PM (the end of our Social Studies class). 

How can you prepare for the take-home exam?

• Use our main Geography and History Google Slide decks (in your Google Drive Social Studies folder) to review the lessons we have covered this year. You can use these slides when answering the short answer questions and should include direct quotes from them. 

Can I have help with my exam?

• I am available to help and to answer any questions that come up! 

(Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/geM5lzDj4Iw)

Mrs. B

Grade 6 had a very exciting start to the week! They participated in a special two-day cross-curricular unit ‘Living Sustainably’.

We started learning about sustainability in “the past” on Monday with our special guests and grandparents that joined us for Generations Day. The grade 6 students spent time with their guests learning about what sustainability meant to their grandparents and ways that they have helped repair the Earth while growing up. Were sustainability and environmental initiatives just a ‘normal’ part of the day? Are we actually doing more to help the environment today?

After the interviews, students worked collaboratively to try to ‘Escape to Green Island’ through a series of math problems that pertained to water and energy usage. This was a fun activity, combining all of the subject disciplines of English, Math, Social Studies, and Science!

Students began day-two of the unit completing their own biodiversity hunt in their backyards! What species live there? How do they interact and rely on each other?

On Tuesday afternoon, Oakwood’s Construction Development Manager, Trent Doherty, gave a presentation about the benefits of Net Zero homes and sustainable building solutions. The students had lots of great questions- Can you make a 100 year old home Net Zero? Does it cost more to build a net zero home? If someone wants an outdoor pool, can it be part of the Net Zero system? Trent also shared important lessons for the students that he has learned throughout his own career story- the importance of learning to work with others and that we need to embrace mistakes and learn from them to move forward!

To end our two-days together, students were asked to design their own Net Zero home! Some students chose to design their own home on paper, while others used Minecraft and other programs for the designs!

(Design by Joey Sm.)

We tried something new together and had a lot of fun in the process! Students had the opportunity to give feedback about the two-day cross-curricular unit that the teaching team will look at when we look back at the process of planning and implementing the unit, and what we learned to apply to our teaching next year. And yes, that certainly sounds like a good starting point for another blog post 🙂

Our Grade 7 class is currently learning about early Canadian history starting from the year 1713 up to Confederation (this is where we pick up in Grade 8!). As part of our unit, we have been looking at the key roles that existed during the fur trade, such as the voyageurs, coureur de bois, and Indigenous women. Students each chose a job from a list and had to use the program Thinglink.com to share a description of the job, the challenges of the job, what an average day was like, and lastly some fun facts about the job. Below you will find the QR codes that connect to each Thinglink assignment.

Leo shares about the role of the habitant

Maytal shares about the coureur de bois:

Halel shares about the voyageurs:

Yaakov shares about the coureur de bois:

Please leave a comment below with any questions you have for the students!

On Thursday, April 22nd we celebrated Earth Day as a Middle School and larger OJCS school community. Both our English and French Social Studies classes spent time together learning about the importance of ‘everyday being Earth Day’ and we dove into a rich discussion about the impact of COVID-waste on our environment. While PPE is essential to keeping ourselves safe during the pandemic, we discussed how we can be more mindful about reducing or managing waste that is produced through the pandemic. Together we read the article ‘More masks than jellyfish’ and discussed how we can still keep ourselves safe through COVID while reducing COVID-waste, through strategies like reusable masks. One highlight from the Grade 6 class is we listened to Maayan in Grade 8’s Passion Project presentation, which focused on the impact of plastic pollution in our oceans. Click the link above to join Maayan for her ‘wireside’ chat. Elisha in Grade 8 also shared her Passion Project with the school in her own ‘wireside’ chat discussing her own process of learning about and creating a vertical garden. We encouraged students to take the OJCS Earth Day Pledge and share one way they can help restore the Earth in their everyday lives. The pledges were shared on a school Flipgrid page. 

What is one way you will help repair our world?