1.
1. Intros:
2. Marlo’s work with Lest We Forget, The Vimy Project,
teacher and student tours of the battlefields and
cemeteries
Lunch break: please return by 1:30pm
3. The Big 6 Historical Concepts overview and practical
application to SS9/10, SS9/11 and History 12 (an example
for each grade)
4. Applying the Big 6 to your classroom
5. Your Sharing (2:15)
6. Workshop evaluation/feedback (2:45)
The Big 6 Historical Thinking Concepts
And
The Changing Curriculum
April 28, 2017

2.
Desired State
Investigate
Determine Significance
Understand Values and Beliefs
Develop questions for inquiry
Engage to Understand Self
Develop perspective by doing
the work
Work with Evidence
Work as historians!

3.
The Historical Thinking Project works with six
distinct but closely interrelated historical
thinking concepts. To think historically, students
need to be able to:
1. Establish historical significance
2. Use primary source evidence
3. Identify continuity and change
4. Analyze cause and consequence
5. Take historical perspectives
6. Understand the ethical dimension of
historical interpretations.
developed by Peter Seixas and Tom Morton:

4.
Big Six promotes:
Big Ideas that thread across
decades
Differentiation of process and
product
Skills within the Discipline
Working across Subject Areas
Flexibility in how we teach
Weave our outcomes or
expectations

5.
Working With Evidence: A Soldier’s Life:
Lest We Forget: The Vimy Project
http://www.bac-
lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-
heritage/lest-we-forget/Pages/lest-
we-forget-project.aspx
http://www.bac-
lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-
heritage/lest-we-
forget/Pages/selecting-military-
service-files.aspx

6.
www.lest-we-forget.ca
Road to Vimy Project - 2017

7.
The Big Six and Vimy The sheet on your table can
help when looking at
primary evidence.

8.
Vimy Foundation
http://www.vimyfoundation.ca/progr
ams/beaverbrook-vimy-prize/

9.
Battlefields and Cemeteries:
Teachers Tours of France and Belgium,
and the Netherlands
http://www.unb.ca/fredericton/arts/centres/gr
egg/tours/

10.
Lest We Forget Project
http://www.quesnelmuseum.ca/caribooobser
ver_form.html
http://www.bac-
lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/mass-digitized-
archives/circumstances-death-
registers/Pages/item.aspx?PageID=51401
411.ca
War diaries of cef
Resources Online

11.
The New Curriculum:
Influenced by the Big 6
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curricul
um/social-studies/9
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/cu
rriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/ss_10-
12.pdf

12.
Example #1: Social Studies 11
The Titanic as a metaphor for the causes of World War One (The Great War)

13.
Why Europe?
The Renaissance (The printing press)
The Enlightenment (The telescope)
The Industrial Revolution (the steam and internal combustion engines)
The Digital Age (the desktop computer)
All this leads to the Titanic as a symbol of European ascendancy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSGeskFzE0s
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/t
here-was-no-great-shock-or-
anything-how-a-baker-survived-the-
titanic-disaster-by-getting-really-
drunk
http://www.titanichg.com/
H
ttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/titanic-pictures-
shipwreck-anniversiary
https://t.co/TVfccVaK1e
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/graphics/tita
nic-anniversary-who-was-on-the-ship-when-it-
sunk-and-who-got-away

14.
Titanic: The Causes of World War One (The Great War) use the Smartboard
1. Use the Big Sheet and your iphones to google the Big 6 applied to the Titanic (30
minutes)
2. Discuss, chart, note responses
3. The Titanic drawing as metaphor for WW1 (why Europe?)
4. Watch various videos of the ship’s demise

15.
Titanic exercise.
Use Smartphones, laptops, computers to complete
the following process.
Sort the following topics, events, things into a
category of the Big 6 and explain why it applies
there(all can find a place somewhere):
● Picture of the Titanic
● Graveyard of the Titanic
● Titanic II
● Passenger list
● Ship design flaws
● Crew and Captain’s decisions
● Death/survivor toll
● Survivors lives
Any useful maps, videos,
graphics.

16.
Example #2 Social Studies 10
The Disappearance of the Bison: handout

17.
Buffalo/bison exercise:
Grade 9
Use Smartphones, laptops,
computers to complete the
following process.
Sort the following topics, events,
things into a category of the Big 6
and explain why it applies there (all
can find a place somewhere):
● Food source and process
● Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump
● Pictures
● Reason for Disappearance and impact
● Religion
● Current situation/numbers
● Re-introduction to Banff/elsewhere
Any useful maps, videos,
graphics.

18.
Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHB4jhmXSFg
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/alberta/first-bison-calves-born-in-banff-national-
park-backcountry-in-140-years/article34808060/

19.
History 12: example #3
The Ethical Dimension:
The Atomic Bombs and the decision to drop them.
Why did the American drops atomic bombs on Japan in
August of 1945?
What have the long term impacts of the bombs been?

20.
Your turn.
Groups of similar grade level teachers, if possible.
Brainstorm some topic areas and applications of the Big 6.
Sharing at 2:15pm