Lesson 1: Choosing Your Special Place
Invites students to examine and reflect at some of the special places in their lives.
(Adapted from Teaching Landmarks)
Subjects: Social Studies, Language Arts, Art
Grade Levels: 2-9
Time Frame: 2-3 class periods
Materials Needed:
· Choosing Your Special Place Worksheet
· Telling Stories about Your Shared Places worksheet
Learning Objectives: Students will:
1. Develop their own definition /understanding of what a landmark is
2. Explore the idea of place
3. Develop a broader definition of landmarks that includes people and ideas
4. Create a timeline noting changes the place has undergone
5. Seek stories of local heroes
Procedure:
1. Have students start with a place that is special to them-- a place that they would not want destroyed or that they will want to remember when they are very old. Is it:
-
inside or outside?
-
your bedroom?
-
a place in your home where you go to be alone?
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a part of your home where you gather with your family or friends?
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somewhere in your yard or in your neighborhood?
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someplace you visit with your family or friends?
The students' special place may be a place where people gather, such as a classroom, bus stop, playground, a neighborhood store, or where something important or significant to them has happened.
2. Have students record their answers on the Choosing Your Special Place worksheet.
3. Have students find out how their place was before they inhabited or began to use it, considering who was there, how it was used, etc. Students are to use the Telling Stories about Your Shared Places worksheet.
4. Have students locate photographs of their landmark at the local library, newspaper, or historical society; if students cannot find photographs, have them create an artwork showing how it might have looked in the past.
5. Have students create a timeline as a way of telling others about the place they have chosen. The timeline will show how the place has changed over the years. Student will include text, photographs, drawings, or other representations of their place through time, including stories of special things that happened or people who lived or worked in the place. Display it in your classroom or school.
Extension Questions
-
How important to other people is the place you have chosen? Have people valued the place you have chosen as special? Has it been preserved for others in its original form? If so, why do you think people have preserved it? If not, why do you think people have chosen not to preserve it?
-
You have chosen a place that is special to you and to the community. Do you think it should be preserved for the future? Why? If so, how would you go about preserving it? If it is preserved for the future, will it have a new meaning or function?
Choosing Your Special Place
| 1. List three things that you especially like about this place. It may help to think about why you go there and what you do when you are
there.
2. Describe your place for someone who has never seen it. Think about where it is, its size, color(s), and shapes. Describe its parts. Take a few minutes to describe as many details as you can, remembering that with the words you choose, you are trying to create a picture in someone else's
mind.
3. Search your memory for times that have been especially good in your selected place. List these times with the starter: "I remember the time
when...."
4. You may have memories of moments in your selected place that were not so good. List these with the starter: "I remember the time
when...."
5. What would be missing from your life if you didn't have this place in
it?
6. Use the ideas that you have thought about above to write a short paragraph or story about your special place and how it has been important to who you are as a
person. |
Telling Stories About Your Shared Place
1. Find out as much as you can about the place you have chosen as a landmark:
-
What is the relationship of your landmark to the area surrounding it?
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How has it been used in the past?
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Did other people in your community use this landmark? How?
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Talk to people in your school or community to learn as much as you can. What would you like to know?
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Did your landmark look different in the past? How did it look?
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What was in its place before it came into being? How did it come into being?
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Are there any special stories about this place? Did anything special happen here? Did any special people live or work here?
-
How do you think it will be used or look in the future?
-
How important to other people is the place you have chosen?
References
Built Environment
Lesson 1: Choosing Your Special Place
Invites students to think deeply and look closely at some of the special places in their lives. As they explore their own concepts of landmarks, they learn that other people have their own special places that they have explored and celebrated.
Glenbow Archives Photographs
http://ww2.glenbow.org/search/archivesPhotosSearch.aspx
Louise Mckinney Riverfront Photo Gallery
(not available at this time) http://www.louisemckinneyriverfront.com/sub_pages/
Bridges
City of Edmonton Archives
Over 250,000 historical photographs, dating from the 1880's, more than 100,000 slides currently housed are of a more contemporary nature. Much of the collection consist of negatives, slides, moving images and prints. An extensive collection of aerial photographs of the city dating from 1924 to 1988
Books
Edmonton's lost heritage / prepared by the Heritage Sites Selection Committee of the Edmonton Historical Board. Published: 1982
Edmonton : the life of a city / Bob Hesketh and Frances Swyripa, editors.
Published: c1995. Articles: What Kind of a City is Edmonton? Edmontonians and the Legislature
Edmonton, gateway to the North : an illustrated history / by John F. Gilpin ; picture research by John E. McIsaac ; "Partners in progress" by Stanley Arthur Williams. Published: c1984.
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