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LESSON PLAN INCORPORATING TECH INTEGRATION:

GEOLOGICAL FEATURES OF AB (Gr. 4)
Group Members: Cas, Erik, Mathilde
Lesson
Geographical Features of Alberta Course Social Studies (Gr. 4)
Title/Focus

PROGRAM OF STUDY OUTCOMES

● Students will demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of how elements of physical
geography, climate, geology and paleontology are integral to the landscapes and environment of
Alberta.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
1. Examine, critically, the physical geography of Alberta by exploring and reflecting on Where is
Alberta located in relation to the other provinces and territories of Canada?
2. Identify and appreciate the major geographical and natural vegetation regions, landforms and
bodies of water in Alberta specifically the hoodoos and Rocky Mountains
MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT
● Slides
● Google forms
● Google Maps

PREPARATION AND LOGISTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

● Embed links to google maps in the PowerPoint slides
● Have slides, google forms, and surveys ready to be shared
●
PROCEDURE
Introduction Time
● Start by introducing some aspects of the physical geography of Alberta and some
facts about them so students understand how they have come to exist and their 1 min
importance.
Body Time
Topic 1) Talk about where it is located in Canada (nestled
Where is Alberta? between British Columbia and Saskatchewan, East of
the Rocky Mountains) 1 min
2) The major geological features

Topic 1) How they were formed

Hoodoos 2) Interesting Facts 1-1.5 min

Topic 1) How they were formed

Rocky Mountains 2) Interesting facts 1-1.5min
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Topic
1) How they were formed
Coulees
2) Interesting facts
1-1.5min
3) Explain Indigenous perspectives

Conclusion Time
● Activity- Allow students a chance to explore different landscapes on their
own using Google Maps. 3-5
minutes

Assessment
● They will fill out a form that asks them to choose one landscape, explore it, and answer
some questions.

Reflection:
Summary:
We began the activity by asking our classmates to open the link to the google slides
presentation we’ve prepared in a browser not associated with their school account (as the
University of Lethbridge google accounts don’t have access to Google Maps.)
Using the powerpoint for visuals, we then took students through a summary of the major
geographical features of Alberta, which includes the Prairies, Coulees, Hoodoos and the Rocky
Mountains. These were the four regions outlined in the curriculum. We gave a brief explanation as
to what these formations are and their history, including indigenous names and legends
surrounding them.
After reviewing these landforms, we gave students the chance to explore them on our own.
We asked students to explore some of the different regions of Alberta virtually using links to the
google maps “street view” of places like Red Rock Coulee, Moraine Lake in Banff, Writing-on-Stone
National Park, or Dinosaur Park in Drumheller. To do this, we asked them to click on links we had
embedded in the powerpoint that brought them directly to the interactive, street view map. This
allowed them to move around the landscapes and appreciate them from multiple angles, as if they
had visited them in person.
We asked students to fill out a google form we had attached to the end of the powerpoint
while they conducted their observations. This form included a space to summarize what they had
seen at the location of their virtual tour, explain why they visited that location (and not others), and
to share whether they would like to visit any of the places they explored in person, and, if so, to look
up how long it would take them to travel to it. We also asked them if there were any locations that
we didn’t include that they suggested including, and if they had any feedback on the activity.
Selection of Technology
We integrated three three pieces of technology into our lesson: instruction by a google slide
presentation, exploration through google maps, and assessment by a google forms document.

Google Slides:
We used google slides because it was a fast, simple way to share information with our
classmates during a zoom presentation. We were able to send them each a link to the document to
refer to later (if they desired) and to share our screen online. The choice of an online slide software
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also made co-editing easier, as we were able to edit our slides concurrently. We found slides was
extremely useful for collaborating and eventually sharing our presentation, and also found a
Canada-Day themed template that made preparing a thematically appropriate presentation
remarkably simple.
Other tools, such as Microsoft Powerpoint, a Prezi, or a Kahoot, might have been equally
effective, but we found that this technology worked effectively for our purposes and we knew it
would work cohesively with the other elements of our presentation–as all three were google
services.

Google Maps
Google Maps was the feature technology of our presentation. The point of this activity was to
help students use Maps to get a sense for the landforms discussed and what it would take to visit
them. As Google Maps is more interactive than a simple photo, we hoped to provide our students
with an immersive experience that would help them appreciate the majesty of the different regions
of our province. By exiting street view and having Google give them directions to their places of
interest, we hoped to highlight for students how close to them these landforms are and to encourage
them to consider what it might take to visit them. (If given more time in an actual classroom, we
considered having students propose a plan for a field-trip to one of their favorite sites as an
extension activity.)
We ran into one hiccup immediately after we started embedding links into the powerpoint
slide. I found that I was unable to navigate to the links we had inserted on my browser, as I was
logged into my school account (which, due to an agreement with microsoft, doesn’t support google
maps). This problem was resolved after I logged into my personal google account, but we decided
we needed to forewarn our classmates to change browsers if they were logged into their school
accounts. The other issue we encountered was finding the landscapes that we wanted in their full,
interactive form. For instance, I know of Hoodoos closer to Lethbridge that I wanted to feature, but I
found that their street views weren’t available on Google Maps. Other sites in the mountains had
only a single point that one could navigate to, preventing students from virtually walking around
and exploring the area as we wanted them to.
We found this technology was effective for giving students virtual tours of some particularly
popular landscapes, but found that the format wasn’t as interactive as it might have been. After
giving the presentation (we lacked the foresight to try this before presenting, unfortunately) I
looked up other materials that could complement or replace this technology. One potential tool was
called “GeoTour: Discovering Alberta’s Landscapes” found at
[Link] This tool also allows users to explore some fantastic
geographical sites in Alberta, but none of the images are 3D. The other issue is that this tool is only
useful for these specific sites in Alberta, thus, learning its use doesn’t actually translate to future
applications.
The site listed some locations we didn’t include in our presentation, however, such as Hard
Luck Canyon or Frank’s slide, and included some descriptive text about why each location was
significant. All of these sites have 3D street view renderings on Google Maps, but many of them are
just a single 3D image and don’t allow students to move about them. We could perhaps have
incorporated these sites into our presentation.
We still feel confident that Google Maps was the tool to use for this assignment, but our
presentation could have been enhanced if we had sought out and learned from the alternatives.

Google Forms
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For our formative assessment/survey at the end of our lesson, we generated a google form
for students to use during their explorations. On it, we asked them questions about the site, their
interest in visiting it, how they felt that the google maps exploration impacted their experience of
each site, and what (if any) locations they would suggest us adding to our presentation in the future.
Creating the form was quick and easy. There was a ready-made exit slip template with a picture of
travelers and a mountain at the top, so it was easy to make the form cohesive with the rest of the
presentation.
We decided to use this form of formative assessment because it was familiar, quick to make,
and didn’t require students to log in to another site. We embedded the link to the form in our google
slide which made it pop up in a separate tab when they clicked on it, where it could be immediately
filled out. Google forms also allowed me to share the results with my teammates (some tools, like
Kahoot and Menti-Meter, don’t allow collaborators using a free account). As we were simply asking
students to give short answers about their experiences and not making a scoreboard, trying to make
a word-cloud, or using another technology, google forms seemed like the ideal tool for this
assessment.

Implementation
Our assignment went smoothly and mostly as outlined. We did make a point of telling our
classmates not to use their school browsers to complete this assignment so that they were able to
access google maps without difficulty.
During instruction, each team member took a turn describing one of the three highlighted
landforms (the Rockies, Hoodies, and Coulees. We skipped over the prairies–as we thought that they
would be more familiar to students and less interesting to explore). We endeavored to include details
about how each landform was created and indigenous names and stories about the areas; these provided a
rich backdrop to the sites we were exploring.
After a brief explanation of each landform, we started our classmates on the activity. As this
activity was conducted online, it was difficult to observe them, so this piece of the activity was conducted
independently. We got some insight into their experiences from their responses in the survey, though.
From the comments, I gathered that all of our 7 students decided to explore somewhere in the Rocky
Mountains. If we ran this again, I would probably ask students to explore one location in each zone, or to
get into groups of three, explore one type of zone each, and then share with one another the highlights.
The students also reported, as a group, that they were surprised by how close the regions they
explored were, and would be interested in conducting a day-trip to visit one of them. They also suggested
a few places that we could incorporate into the presentation in the future (eg. Frank Slide and the Enchant
Prairies).
It was most instructive to receive feedback about the students’ experience with google maps. In
response to the question “How did the use of google maps impact your experience, interest and/or
learning about the different geographic regions of Alberta?” we received the following responses:
● “Was actually really cool and unexpected to be able to do street view on the hiking trails”
● “It puts both a visual and location on a map to a name or place, which I think makes it far more
accessible.”
● “I liked how it really made me feel like I was in the Rockies even though I was on my computer
screen.”
● “I thought it was really cool to be able to move the image around to see more than just the original
image.”
● “You can easily see how the land around the water impacts the overall shape and flow of the
water.”
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● “I really liked this activity because you guys taught some information and then let us explore
alone!!! very creative!!!!”
From these responses, we gathered that the activity was somewhat successful in generating student
interest in the different regions of Alberta as intended.

Adaption
When we asked what our classmates could make this activity better, they said:
● “Even more examples and places! I'm sorry I don't have any suggestions though.”
● “honestly being in a classroom and not online.”
● “After letting students explore, could visit a view a couple of the sites together as a group and talk
about what “students noticed or seen in each panorama”
● “Allowing students to explore cityscapes too, maybe their own neighbourhood, etc.”
● “I thought it was great!”
Drawing from these responses and our own experiences, we think this activity would be enhanced
in the future if we conducted it in a classroom rather than online. It would be helpful as teachers to be able
to walk the length of the classroom and observe our students’ interactions. We would encourage students
to get in groups where they could each tackle a slide and share their coolest findings with each other to
ensure that each student had an opportunity to engage with all the different types of landscape. As
mentioned above, we would also encourage students to draft a field-trip proposal for any sites that they
would be particularly interested in visiting, asking them account for travel time and relevance to what is
taught in school.
To improve the content of this lesson, we would like to add some sites such as Big Rock,
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, and Frank’s Slide. We would also include some of the sites from
GeoTour, if street views could be found for those locations.
Potential changes notwithstanding, we consider this activity a promising approach to help students
connect with the geography of Alberta and learn about the rich history behind these regions.