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OJCS Middle School Social Scientists

In our OJCS Middle School Social Studies classes, we have shifted to focusing on the KEY skills that students need to develop as Social Scientists. It’s easy in some subject disciplines to create your won ‘tunnel vision’ on the topics that you need to teach in a school year- and Social Studies is one of those disciplines. Why? The Ontario Social Studies curriculum provides an outline of the Geography and History topics to focus on for teachers in any give school year, such as the reasons for and against Canadian Confederation. With the time contraints felt by teachers in any education system, it can be quite easy to focus on the WHAT.

While the WHAT of our classes is important, we’re focusing on the WHY and HOW for a richer and more meaningful classroom experience. WHY is a particular topic important to learn about? HOW can I best investigate a particular topic as a Social Scientists?

Today in our combined French and English Grade 7 Social Studies, we focused on one of the key skills: formulating inquiry questions for our upcoming unit on ‘Water’. We learned that a rich inquiry question cannot simply be answered with one word, is a yes/no question, and should be directly linked to a detail in the source. The specific source we focused on was photographs. Below you can see some of the different photographs we analyzed and the students discussing the quality of each inquiry question created.

Curious for the other key skills our Middle School Social Scientists are learning? Stay tuned to our blog!

Gr. 7 Climate Change Factors

Noam and Abby- Bodies of Water

In grade 7 Social Studies with Mrs.Bertrend, we are continuing to learn about climate. We are learning about the 6 factors that affect climate: relief, elevation, ocean currents, wind & air masses, and latitude. While some like ‘ocean currents’ may not directly impact us living in Ottawa, many of the factors do. Which factors affect us the most in Ottawa? Comment below!

We were also each assigned a climate factor and created a powtoon teaching others about the climate factor. In the powtoon, we had to explain what climate is (and how it is different from weather), our climate factor, how it impacts climate, and then how it affects those living in the Ottawa area. Please check out our powtoon videos below to learn more about the 6 climate factors.

Sarah- Relief

Ruben & Sarah- Elevation

Brandon- Ocean Currents

Jacob- Wind & Air Masses

Maayan- Latitude

What are we up to next? Now that we’ve learned all about the factors which affect our Earth’s climate, we have been discussing the natural and human causes of climate change. We have also each selected a different climate change project that we are working on now- stay tuned for our blog post sharing each project!

Grade 6 Learns About Communities in Canada: Past & Present

Learn about Tim Horton from Maytal

The grade 6 English Social Studies class has been busy learning all about communities in Canada, both in the past and present. This builds on their grade 5 Social Studies unit where they learned all about early Indigenous communities in Canada and the first contact with Europeans.

As part of the ‘Communities in Canada’ unit, students completed two different assignments during Term 1. The first assignment was ‘What Does Being Canadian Mean To You? and the second was a ‘Famous Canadian’ project where students researched the biography and significant contributions of a Canadian.

Each student shared one of the assignments on their blog- check out the links below and leave a comment for the students right on their blog page. Let them know you are reading their work!

Learn about David Suzuki from Ava

What ‘Being Canadian’ means to Elisha

What ‘Being Canadian’ means to Matthew

What ‘Being Canadian’ means to Yaakov

*More blog posts to come!

Right now the students are focusing on learning about one community in Canada in more detail, such as the Jewish community in Canada or the Irish community in Canada. What are the key skills they are learning along the way? Research skills and synthesizing information, analyzing and interpreting data, formulating inquiry questions, evaluating and drawing conclusions, gathering an dorganizing information, and clearly communicating their results- all of the KEY skills of a Social Scientist!

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Grade 8 Learns about Sustainable Development

Grade 8 has been learning all about sustainable development. We have learned about what population density is and how to calculate it. We have also been looking at different distribution patterns for communities such as linear, scattered, clustered, and peripheral.

Linear: The population lines up along a natural of man-made feature.

Scattered: The population is spread out over a large area.

Clustered: The population is tightly packed in a small area.

Peripheral: The population surrounds a feature, like a mountain or stadium, and circles the edge of a territory.

What distribution pattern(s) do we have in Ottawa? Comment below!

We are currently learning about megacities- what is a megacity, the factors that allow for these areas to grow to a population exceeding 10 million, the challenges that they face, as well as creative solutions for sustainable development. We watched The Daily Conversation series which introduces us to different megacities around the globe.

Each student in the English Social Studies class is working on a megacity project right now where they research one megacity in greater detail. They are creating a photo collage using Google Slides which has 9 visuals- 3 visuals which illustrate 3 factors that allowed the city to grow to megacity status, 3 visuals which illustrate 3 problems the city faces, and then 3 visuals which illustrate a solution to each problem. The rubric for the project is below and class presentations will begin on Monday, December 16th.

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On fait des totems comme en Colombie-Britannique!

Après une belle présentation sur la Colombie-Britannique par Samara Spivock, elle nous a invité à créer nos propres totems! J’ai hâte de voir leurs créations originales !

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Vivre dans une métropole !

En 8e année, on commence notre unité sur les métropoles et les défis associés à pouvoir gérer ces villes de façon durable dans le 21e siècle. Des villes comme Mumbai, Le Caire, Lagos et Sao Paolo seront à l’étude à travers des photo reportages préparés par nos élèves.

Voici un excellent lien qui offre de l’information pour la classe:

Les métropoles

Vous pensez que le trafic est horrible à Ottawa, à Montréal ou à Ottawa ? Regardez ceci:

À bientôt !

Mr. C

Grade 8 Eng. Social Studies Quiz

Dear Class,

A reminder that on Wednesday we have our Term 1 quiz for Social Studies. Below is the document that we discussed and reviewed last week. Please let me know if you have any questions! You’re going to do great! Remember to be proactive and study a little bit each evening, rather than leaving it all to last minute.

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Grade 6 Eng. Social Studies Homework

The grade 6 class has been learning all about Canadian demographics. This includes what the word ‘demographics’ means and also what data sets can we look at to learn more about who Canadians are.

This week students have been working with data sets looking at the total population of Canada and the percentage of citizens that live in rural and urban areas. We learned that the population of Canada from 1851 to present day has shifted from rural to urban areas and what this means for municipal planning for these areas.

If students did not finish the rural vs. urban population questions in class, they were sent home to complete. The question set can be found below:

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Grade 7 Eng. Social Studies Natural Disaster Response Plan

Grade 7 has been learning all about the opportunities and challenges that are presented by the physical environment and the ways in which people have responded to them. Part of this conversation has been about climate change and the more extreme weather patterns-which has resulted in more natural disasters.

Each student is now researching a current natural disaster and creating a natural disaster response plan for the community. This includes how the community can mitigate the effects of the disaster in the future.

The instructions for the assignment are below.

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