A free comprehensive course package for educators that provides entire unit plans to effectively deliver culturally-responsive and relevant Civics learning that emphasizes human rights, equity and diversity, and student voice.
Designed to meet the needs of educators who have extensive experience, some experience or no experience with teaching Civics, this is a ‘plug and play’ course outline and package with classroom-ready resources, activities, and assessment tools designed by Ontario educators.
All of the activities in the course package are aligned with the revised curriculum expectations and the frameworks referenced in the front matter, as well as Growing Success, and many relevant ministry documents and policies, like the Adolescent Literacy Guide, Learning for All, Literacy Alerts, and Ontario’s Education Equity Plan.
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- Unit 1
- Unit 2
- Unit 3
- Final Culminating Task
We want to take this opportunity to thank all of the volunteers and educators that have given their time to support Civics teachers in Ontario by creating or reviewing this course package.
We acknowledge that in the first draft of these resources there are some problematic lines of questioning and content. In order to move forward in a good way, OHASSTA will be using educator feedback to edit and re-work any problematic pieces to ensure we are sharing lessons rooted in best practices that reflect what we value as an organization.
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Unit 1
Unit 1 Culminating Task: Researching a Civic Issue
Lesson 1: What does it mean to be Canadian
In this lesson, students will think about the idea of Canada and what it means to be Canadian. They will listen to and share viewpoints on the different experiences of many Canadians, including themselves. Students will also have the opportunity to think about their own identity.
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Lesson 2: Starting with the Land (Treaties)
Starting with the land is imperative to understanding our rights and particularly our responsibilities to the land and to First Nations Peoples, Métis, and Inuit. In this lesson, students will gain knowledge about the treaty-making process and an understanding of local treaty agreements in their region.
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Lesson 3: Concepts of Political Thinking, Part 1
In this lesson, students will learn to investigate issues using the Concepts of Political Thinking, in particular “Political Significance” and “Political Perspectives.” They will gain an understanding of how political power operates in society and the ways in which it can be complex. Students will also learn about the Political Spectrum and interrogate their own political position.
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Lesson 4: Concepts of Political Thinking, Part 2
In this series of lessons, students will learn to investigate issues using the Concepts of Political Thinking, particularly “Objectives and Results” and “Stability and Change.” These concepts will be explored through studying The Indian Act using The Secret Life of Canada’s materials for schools. This is a comprehensive teaching package to help students understand the Indian Act as a civic issue that gave power to the Crown to govern and control Indigenous Peoples.
Unit 2 will explore more about Indigenous governance and how it interacts with Crown ways of governing. The lessons below will help prepare students for lessons in the next unit. This lesson includes the first assignment for evaluation.
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Lesson 5: Media Literacy
In this lesson, students will learn how information is created for the purposes of news and social media. They will develop skills to evaluate their sources and ‘fact-check’ their information and assess their skills using game-based learning at the end.
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Lesson 6: Democracy in Canada
In this lesson, students will learn about the fundamental principles of democracy in a Canadian context. They will then apply these principles of democracy to evaluate Canada’s current system.
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Lesson 7: Examples of Civic Action
This lesson explores historic and contemporary examples of how people have taken action for change in their society. Specifically there is a whole-group focus on the Civil Rights movement in Ontario in the 20th century and as a consolidation task, students will explore their own heroes of democracy who affected democratic change in their society.
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Unit 2
Unit 2 Culminating Task: Campaign Proposal
Lesson 1: Rights and Responsibilities
In this lesson, students will learn how to identify different rights and their corresponding responsibilities in a democratic society.
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Lesson 2: The Political Compass, the Political Parties, and the Electoral System
In this lesson, students will learn about the political compass (or political spectrum), the political parties, and the electoral system and process. They will also have the opportunity to consider the notion of “voter apathy” and why one might not choose to engage in the electoral process, centring the voices of marginalized peoples.
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Lesson 3.1: Settler Governance: Orders of Government – Levels, Branches and Budgets
In this lesson, students will learn about settler governance in Canada including the three levels of government, what their responsibilities are, and how their budgets are spent. Students will also learn about the different branches of government at the provincial and federal levels.
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Lesson 3.2: Indigenous Governance
In this lesson, students will learn about the rights of Indigenous people entrenched in the Constitution and they will work in groups to research a First Nation, Métis or Inuit governance system*, and then teach their peers about this system.
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Lesson 4.1: Making Laws
In this lesson, students will learn about the legislative process (how laws are made) at both federal and provincial levels. They will also learn about the nature of municipal/local by-laws.
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Lesson 4.2: Challenging Laws
In this lesson, students will learn about the processes by which laws can be amended or repealed. Students will work in groups to investigate the Objectives and Results of the various laws and explore how those laws are subject to stability and change in a democratic society.
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Lesson 5: Active Citizenship
In this lesson, students will work together to define active citizenship. They will then examine the work of Indigenous activists, determining political significance and sharing their findings.
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Unit 3
Unit 3 Culminating Task: Create Your Awareness Campaign Tool + Action Plan
Lesson 1: International Human Rights
In this lesson, students will review the role of the United Nations and Canada’s role in responding to human rights violations by examining its response to various refugee crises. Students will then learn about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and how it applies to the concept of the Universe of Obligation as a framework to understanding global citizenship.
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Lesson 2: UNDRIP Inquiry
In this lesson, students will learn about the political compass (or political spectrum), the political parties, and the electoral system and process. They will also have the opportunity to consider the notion of “voter apathy” and why one might not choose to engage in the electoral process, centring the voices of marginalized peoples.
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Lesson 3: Think Global, Act Local
In this lesson, students will learn about Civil Society organizations, including Non Governmental organizations, non-profit and service groups that contribute to the common good. Students will choose a registered, social service charity that is directly providing services or programming in your school’s local community and explain to their classmates how this organization contributes to the common good.
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Lesson 4: Ontario Human Rights Code
In this lesson, students will be introduced to the Ontario Human Rights Code. This lesson is based on “Teaching Human Rights in Ontario” by the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
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Lesson 5: Investigating a Civic Issue (Climate Change)
In this issue-based lesson, students will learn about climate change as a civic issue. They will investigate sources to become informed about the issue of climate change and re-evaluate their position on the issue throughout the lesson.
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Lesson 6: Global Sustainability
In this lesson, students will explore international issues relating to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They will learn about the SDGs as a model of setting objectives and measuring the results of a civic action plan that is directed towards the common good. In order to tie their learning to their unit summative and course summative projects, students will also practice making connections between the international, Canadian, and local contexts in which the SDGs can be applied.
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Final Culminating Task
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