Ms. Lindsay Lefebvre, Grade 6 Teacher at Biidaaban Kinoomaagegamik, recently shared a ‘Map App’ interactive learning journey for her students, supported by an educational tool on loan through Canadian Geographic Education, and organized by Colleen Toulouse (Sagamok Education Student Support Program Coordinator). The program is called Biinaagami: Our Shared Responsibility to the Great Lakes.
Lindsay described the activity with students, which started off by introducing and reading the picture book titled “The Water Walker”, drawing on students’ personal, and historical connection to the region. The class then went on to view a map of the Great Lakes on their classroom smartboard screen while making conversation together about their knowledge of the lakes and region.
Students were then asked to download an App called AVARA Discover to their computers. AVARA Discover App connects to a large-scale floor map. By “large-scale”, we are talking big enough to spread across a quarter of the gym floor, large-scale! It measured 36 feet by 26 feet (11m x 8m). The Map (meant to be walked across/on) displayed various symbols and locations around the Great Lakes region and includes all of the First Nations locations within it. The Map, when scanned/panned over with the users’ hand-held device, displays symbols on the device screen (through the AVARA Discover app) that then creates a virtual reality of the place where the student is standing on the map! It immediately engages to tell the listener a story about the area they are looking at/standing on and provides a visually realistic 360-degree view of what the area would have looked like in the past. Students could hear numerous stories about the history of the Great Lakes and surrounding regions, depending on what area of the floor map they were standing on or panning over with their device.
The activity offered students a fun way to absorb a geography and history lesson, and supported a hands-on, interactive learning style by enabling students to ‘virtually’ see the area through a historical lens and ‘realistic, eye-opening’ view as if they were standing there personally ‘back in the day’. “It was so cool!”, was the response heard from Ms. Lindsay and her students.
Lindsay provided the following photos of this engaging experience and teaching moment. Miigwech for sharing this fun classroom activity with us, Lindsay, and miigwech to Colleen, for, once again, bringing a unique experience to students, promoting a deeper connection and understanding of the land, while using modern resources to support their learning.