This activity combines Outdoor Education, Technology, and Geography, History and Citizenship Education. It begins with a walk outdoors identifying and observing characteristics of local trees (note an indoor alternative is provided) and transitions into a historical investigation that builds Competency 2 as students answer the inquiry question, « How did the economy change between 1745 and 1820? »
By linking the physical trees around your school to Napoleon’s blockade and the shift from New France to Lower Canada, students move beyond memorizing dates to mastering the « Establishing Causal Connections » intellectual operation. It offers a seamless blend of outdoor inquiry, critical thinking about historical changes, such as how economic shifts impacted Indigenous-settler relations, and ready-to-use digital resourcesResources are anything taken from the earth or nature that people need, use, and are "valued"..... It’s a turnkey way to help your students interpret how a society’s territory evolves through its relationship with the land.
ResourcesResources are anything taken from the earth or nature that people need, use, and are "valued"....:
Canva Slide Deck Template Link
Student Tree Identification Table
Teacher Tree Identification Table
Tree Identification Slide Show
Notes on the Creation Process: This activity demonstrates how NotebookLM can be used to generate activities for Geography, History, and Citizenship Education. The slide deck and podcast were created by uploading copyright-free teaching materials to the platform and then requesting an output with a specific prompt focused on economic changes between 1745 and 1820, using student-friendly text and images.
After the slide deck was created in NotebookLM, it was uploaded to a Canva account. From there, I used Canva’s « Magic Layers » tools to piece apart individual elements. This makes the slide deck more accessible since the text is selectable. I changed the fonts, contrast, and removed extra text and images for accessibilityAccessibility refers to access. If something is accessible it means that people have equal access to.... Then I copied the style of the elements in the NotebookLM slides to generate visuals and text for slides 8-10. Then I created a template link so you can automatically be prompted to create a copy in your own Canva Account so you can adjust elements to better suit your students and context.