Lesson #6
Lesson designed by Stefan Superina
Grades: 6-8
Content Focus:
a) Limits and opportunities of the physical environment for human activities.
b) Collect information on ways in which people adapt to living in different physical
environments. Write vignettes summarizing how the physical environment affects life in each
region: how people in high-latitude places deal with the characteristics of tundra
environments.
Lesson Plan:
This lesson will allow students to conduct research into the physical environment of the Arctic
Tundra, investigating the ways in which the Inuit of the Arctic adapted to this landscape.
Through this assignment, students will gain insights into traditional techniques used by the Inuit
to construct shelters, hunt and gather food, make clothing, understand traditional Inuit games,
transportation and customs, and education. Students will then contrast these traditional customs
to modern changes that have taken place in the Arctic today to have an affect on these traditional
Inuit customs.
Lesson Instructions:
1. Show your students the map on the following page and ask them the series of leading
questions:
a) Do they know what the word “Inuit” means? (people)
b) Do they know who the descendants of the Inuit people are? (Thule)
c) What language do the majority of Inuit speak? (Inuktitut)
d) Do they know the three Canadian territories where Inuit people live? (Yukon, Nunavut, NWT)
e) Can they find the Inuit hamlet of Kugluktuk on the map? (this is where the expedition party
finished their trip)
f) What is the most northern Inuit community on this map? (Grise Fiord)
g) Most Inuit communities are located in one territory. Can they name it? (Nunavut) When was
this territory created? (1999) What is the capital of Nunavut? (Iqaliut)
h) Ask your students to describe what the physical environment may be like in the shaded
(brightly coloured) areas on the map.
i) Ask them to hypothesize why all of the Inuit communities are located next to a body of water.
Can they think of any historical reasons for this pattern?
j) Direct your class to observe the immense size of the region they are looking at in comparison
to the rest of Canada. Proportionately, this forms a large percentage of the Canadian
landscape.
Image Source: http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100014250/1100100014254
Map of Inuit Nunangat
“This map of Inuit Nunangat includes the four Inuit regions in Canada. From west to east they
are Inuvialuit - orange, Nunavut - light green, Nunavik - dark green, Nunatsiavut - purple. All 53
Inuit communities across Canada are identified by a red dot. Key bodies of water and provincial
boundaries and names are also represented.”
2. The questions above should get your students thinking about the Inuit landscape and culture.
Show your students images of the physical landscape of the Arctic region to allow them to
form mental images of the differences in topography from where they currently live.
3. The following website will be a starting point for your students to start a project comparing
modern/present day and traditional/past ways of life and culture of the Inuit people.
http://icor.ottawainuitchildrens.com/node/48
4. Additionally, direct your students to find the following pdf file on the internet entitled:
“The Inuit Way: A Guide to Inuit Culture”
Produced by the Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada
Both of these are good resources for the following task.
5. Divide your class up into six groups based on the following categories listed below to conduct
research:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Shelter
Hunting and food
Clothing
Sports
Transportation
Education
6. Each group will be responsible for a presentation and write up on the topic they are assigned.
The group can be creative in their presentations. For example, if they are assigned sports, they
can devise a series of games for the class based on Inuit traditional games. They can explain
the purpose of these games to the Inuit way of life. The class can join in and participate in
trying out these games with each other. If a group is doing clothing, perhaps they can locate
some traditional Inuit clothing to bring in for the presentation and explain its purpose. There
are many ideas that can lead groups to be creative in their presentation.
7. The main goal of the assignment is for each group to research traditional Inuit ways of life
based on their respective topic, and contrast this to the extent in which this traditional way of
life is being carried on throughout Inuit culture today, and how it has been affected by modern
day living with the influence of other forms of technology.