Activity: Crawford Lake: Visions of the Future

A teacher in a green cardigan stands in front of a smartboard at the front of a class. The board displays an image of a glassy lake.

Category

Classroom/At Home Activity

Audience

Educators, Students

Age

9-18

Grades

4-12

Subjects

Art & Culture, Canada, Canadian & World Studies, General, History, Indigenous, Language, Science, Science & Technology, Social Sciences & Humanities, Social Studies, The Arts

Getting Started

This activity is intended as a culminating activity after an onsite or virtual visit to Crawford Lake: Layers in Time for classes who do not wish to complete the full Gallery Trail. This activity may also be adapted for any studies in Climate Change & Sustainability.

Learning Goals

Understand how changes to the climate and environment can be caused by human activities.

Extrapolate from current understanding of climate change and sustainability to propose a solution to problems caused by climate change.

Apply media literacy knowledge to create an article to demonstrate understanding.

Context

View of Crawford Lake from above

Just outside Toronto, Ontario lies a significant site offering a unique, comprehensive 1,000-year record of human impacts - local, regional, and global: Crawford Lake near Milton, Ontario. 

The lake has intrigued scientists for decades, and research on sediments at the bottom of the lake has identified it as having the best record of humanity's impact on the planet. This has led to the lake's selection as a "golden spike" (definitive marker showing where one epoch ends and another begins) candidate for a proposed new geological time period - defined by human-caused climate change - the Anthropocene.

Showcasing Indigenous belongings and settler objects, examples of local and introduced plants, historical documentation, related artworks, core samples, and more, Crawford Lake: Layers in Time offers an engaging, compelling look at the record of human life on Earth. The exhibition illustrates how everything from early agriculture to modern nuclear weapons testing has left its mark on this unassuming Canadian lake - and on the Earth at large - encouraging us to consider what record our activities and the decisions we make today will be left behind for future generations to uncover.

Materials and Preparation

Materials

 

Preparation

Step-by-Step

A group of students sit around a table in a sunny classroom having a discussion
Step 1

As a class or in small groups, discuss what you have learned about how humans cause changes to the Earth.

  • What actions cause changes to the environment and climate?
  • What are the effects of these actions?
  • What might happen if these actions continue?
A digital whiteboard covered in post-its dotted with text, arranged in a brainstorming format.
Step 2

Based on your learning and your class discussion, brainstorm things people could do to reverse some of the harmful impacts we have had on the planet. Use your favourite method of brainstorming. 

Mind maps, post-its, free writing – whatever works best for you!

A smiling student with brown skin and curly black hair circles a sentence in a notebook on a desk in front of them.
Step 3

Look at your brainstorm and choose one thing you think people could do that would make a huge difference.

 

A smiling student dressed in a trenchcoat and fedora holding a notebook stands in front of a futuristic lush solarpunk city.
Step 4

Now imagine you are a news reporter from the future. In this time, people have been doing the idea you chose for many years. Write an article about this amazing idea and how it has changed the world for the better.

Be sure that your article contains information about:

  • What things were like before your idea took effect?
  • What was done?
  • How this has changed the world?
A red frame shows a scene of a town between two hills covered with dead, sparse vegetation. A green frame shows the same town surrounded by lush trees and vegetation.
Step 5

Create some illustrations for your article showing how things were before your idea took effect, and what it looked like after. You can use pencils, pencil crayons, markers, or digital drawing tools.

A smiling young student holds up a newspaper with pictures of an empty field and a field of windmills.
Step 6

Think of a great headline and use paper or digital tools to put your pictures and words together into an amazing article.

 

Images generated by Canva.

Tips

  • Decide if your article will be in a newspaper or magazine, on a digital news site, or on a blog.
  • Research examples of that type of article for ideas on how to put your article together.

Dig Deeper

Follow-Up

  • What inspired your ideas for your articles?
  • Did anything you learned surprise you?
  • What careers would people need to do to make your idea reality?

 

Teacher Reflection

Do students’ articles reflect a basic understanding of how human activities affect the climate and environment? Do students’ articles reflect critical thought and understanding about how solutions might be realized? Do students’ articles demonstrate media literacy about how news articles of their selected type are composed?  

 

Extension Activities

  • Combine all student articles together into a news site or newspaper.
  • Take turns assuming the role of editor to proofread and suggest necessary edits to another reporter’s article.
  • Turn the articles into video news reports.

Glossary

Anthropocene: The newest and current geological age; the period during which human activity has been the driving force on changes to the climate and the environment.

Climate Change: Long-term shifts in temperature and weather patterns.

Ecosystem: A complex system defined by the interaction of a community of living organisms and their environment.

Environment: All the biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) elements that surround and affect organisms or groups of organisms and influence their survival and development.

Sustainability: The ability to balance the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

 

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