Schools across Canada are closed to help control the spread of the COVID-19 virus. This unprecedented situation is placing pressure on teachers to quickly develop online lesson plans and teaching resources, and on parents to download and use those resources for home schooling. Fortunately, Canadian Geographic Education (CanGeo Education) recently launched its new Online Classroom, created to support students who are completing the school year from home by offering fair, accurate and balanced information along with fun activities that families can do together.
“Staying home is no reason to stop exploring and learning,” comments Gilles Gagnier, chief operating officer and publisher at CanGeo Education. “We’re proud to be able to support parents, teachers and students by offering free, bilingual content they can access from home. The Online Classroom features activities and materials aimed at providing long-distance learning while also connecting Canadians virtually.” Gilles Gagnier, COO and publisher, Canadian Geographic Education – Photo courtesy Gilles Gagnier
For more than 25 years, CanGeo Education has developed a strong portfolio of topics and resources geared toward teachers, providing lesson plans and other classroom resources. About a year ago the team started developing ideas to create resources aimed directly at students. With the advent of social distancing during the pandemic, the CanGeo Education team quickly selected topics and re-purposed recent information from their existing assets to create engaging and useful online resources.
Energy Awareness
The Online Classroom site now features a variety of topics – including energy.
From April 13 to 17, CanGeo Education’s Energy Awareness Week takes a focused look at energy generation and use across Canada through videos, infographics, lesson plans, games and more.
Topics covered during the week include:
- Global energy demand
- Offshore resource production
- Electricity types
- Oil and natural gas production including oil sands
- Managing climate change.
Since 2012, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) has supported CanGeo Education’s Energy IQ program, a curriculum-linked national energy literacy program that provides information and resources to help educators, students and the public get a detailed look at energy across Canada. The program is credible, well researched and presents energy-related topics in a balanced way that allows users to explore, learn and draw their own conclusions about various topics. Much of the content featured throughout Energy Awareness Week is drawn from the Energy IQ program.
Energy-related content in the Online Classroom will initially be geared toward high school students, with more information for younger children to come. Additionally, CanGeo Education is developing an ‘energy class in a box’ to be added at a later date. This box will package energy-related content, lesson plans and resources in addition to some new energy-learning modules. CanGeo Education will also continue rolling out energy information on the site over the coming weeks and months, and will be promoting the site through social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
About CanGeo Education
CanGeo Education develops engaging, innovative and accessible online resources for classrooms and its country-wide member network of more than 23,500 educators. Educators and parents have come to rely on CanGeo Education for quality educational content created by educators to align with curricula across the country. CanGeo Education will continue adding new topics and resources to the Online Classroom, helping to make online learning and distance teaching easy and fun. Now more than ever, these resources are timely!
