The Canadian Atlas Online Ontario Grade 9

THE CANADIAN ATLAS ONLINE ONTARIO – GRADE 9 www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas

The St. Lawrence River

Lesson Overview Introduction to the St. Lawrence River and the St. Lawrence River Beluga Whales

Grade Level Secondary School Grade 9

Time Required One 75 minute period

Curriculum Connection The Ontario Curriculum Grades 9 and 10 Canadian and World Studies – Geography of Canada.

Canadian National Geography Standards Essential Element # 1 (Grade 9-12) – The World in Spatial Terms  Map, globe, and atlas use Essential Element # 2 (Grade 9-12) – Places and Regions  Physical and human processes shape places and regions  Changes in places and regions over time  Critical issues and problems of places and regions Essential Element # 3 (Grade 9-12) – Physical Systems  Global ocean and atmospheric systems  World patterns of biodiversity Essential Element # 5 (Grade 9-12) – Environment and Society  Use and sustainability of resources  Environmental issues (e.g. loss of biodiversity, water pollution)

Main Objective Using the Canadian Atlas Online, introduce students to the features of the St. Lawrence River and in particular the St. Lawrence River Beluga whale population.

Principal Resources  The Canadian Atlas Online website at www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas  The Saint-Lawrence Beluga Whale (part of The Canadian Biodiversity Project of McGill University) at http://biology.mcgill.ca/undergra/c465a/biodiver/2000/beluga- whale/beluga-whale.htm  Student Worksheets 1 and 2 (attached)

CANADIAN COUNCIL FOR GEOGRAPHIC EDUCATION 1 THE CANADIAN ATLAS ONLINE ONTARIO – GRADE 9 www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas

Learning Outcomes By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:  Use different types of maps (e.g. road, topographical, thematic) to interpret geographic relationships, including changes over time in a specific location  explain how human activities (e.g. agricultural and urban development, waste management, parks development, forest harvesting, land reclamation) affect, or are affected by, the environment  identify the role of government in managing resources and protecting the environment  assess how the effects of urban growth (e.g. development on former farm lands, destruction of wildlife habitats, draining of marshes) alter the natural environment  present findings from research on ways of improving the balance between human and natural systems (e.g. recycling, river clean-ups, ecological restoration of local woodlots or schoolyards, industrial initiatives to reduce pollution)  explain how selected factors cause change in human and natural systems (e.g. technological developments, corporate and government policies, zoning by-laws, natural hazards, global warming)  gather geographic information from primary sources (e.g. field research, surveys, interviews) and secondary sources (e.g. reference books, mainstream and alternative media, CD-ROMs, the Internet) to research a geographic issue

Lesson

Teacher Activity Student Activity Introduction  Ask students to name a local river or  Respond to teacher’s questions about one in Canada. What do they know about rivers. the river? Why are rivers important?

Lesson  Direct students to the Canadian Atlas Development Online to research details about the St. Lawrence.  Fill in the missing information on  They will use the Cloze Procedure, a Student Worksheet #1 by accessing the technique in which words are deleted from a Canadian Atlas Online at passage. The passage on Student www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas/intro.aspx Worksheet #1 is presented to students, who ?lang=En then click on > Explore by insert the correct words or terms to themes > The land > Rivers of Canada > complete and construct meaning from the On the next page (use this tool to navigate text. to the St. Lawrence River web page)

 The second worksheet focuses on the  Provide students with the second St. Lawrence River Beluga whale population. worksheet and briefly explain that they will Use these two websites: be using two websites to learn about Beluga - Canadian Atlas Online (same as above) whales living in the St. Lawrence, their - The Saint-Lawrence Beluga Whale (part of distribution and status. The Canadian Biodiversity Project of  Students will work at different paces so McGill University) at be prepared to interrupt the Cloze Procedure http://biology.mcgill.ca/undergra/c465a/ to provide guidance for the second student biodiver/2000/beluga-whale/beluga- worksheet whale.htm  Map the features along the St. Lawrence River and the current distribution of the Beluga whale population.

Lesson (cont’d)

Teacher Activity Student Activity Lesson  Create a line graph showing changes in Development the Beluga population since 1977. (cont’d)  Identify the issues of pollution, disease, human disturbances that harm them and actions taken to preserve and protect them. Conclusion  Discuss the status of the Beluga  Students contribute to the class population with students. Note that our discussion. individual environmental decisions can have significant impacts on them or on other threatened or endangered species.

Lesson Extension Students can investigate the distribution and status of other threatened or endangered species in Canada. Polar bears, for instance, provide a convenient tie-in with the issue of global warming.

Assessment of Student Learning  The teacher may collect one or both of the worksheets.  The information may be included on a unit test.

Further Reading  Underwater World – Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/zone/underwater_sous-marin/Beluga/Beluga_e.htm

 Saint Lawrence River Belugas Program (Université de Montréal Faculté de médecine vétérinaire) www.medvet.umontreal.ca/pathologie_microbiologie/Beluga/anglais/default_ang.asp

 Discover science and conservation – Whales at risk – The St. Lawrence Beluga www.baleinesendirect.com/eng/FSC.html?sct=2&pag=2-6-1.html

 Hinterland’s Who’s Who – Mammal Fact Sheet – Beluga Whale www.hww.ca/hww2.asp?id=381

 The State of Canada’s Environment 1996 www.ec.gc.ca/soer-ree/English/SOER/1996Report/Doc/1-6-6-5-6-4-1.cfm

Student Worksheet 1: St. Lawrence River

Background Information Use the Canadian Atlas Online to fill in the blanks on the worksheet below. Visit http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas/intro.aspx?lang=En and click on > Explore by themes > The land > Rivers of Canada > On the next page (use this tool to navigate to the St. Lawrence River web page)

Activity  Source of the St. Lawrence is Lake

 Mouth: (A gulf is an arm of a sea or ocean partly enclosed by land; yet larger

than a bay)

 Direction of flow:

 Length: kilometres to the head of St. Louis River, Minnesota, USA

 Origin of name: on St. Lawrence’s Day in 1535, explorer gave the Saint’s

name to a bay at the river’s mouth; in the early 1600s, it was adopted for the entire river. The Mohawk name is

Kaniatarowanenneh, meaning “ ”

 Fed by Lake Ontario, Canada’s “great river” drains about million square

kilometers. The St. Lawrence is framed by the Highlands to the north and the

Mountains to the south. It starts out as a freshwater waterway from just east of

, Ont., and forms the border with the United States to Cornwall, Ont. It then broadens into a number

of lakes on its way to Montréal.

 From Trois-Rivières to Québec, the freshwater flow is with the tides. The

riverbed drops dramatically at the mouth of the River, where fresh water mixes

with cold Arctic water. At its estuary, the St. Lawrence doubles in width to more than

kilometres before emptying in the Gulf of St. Lawrence An estuary is the wide part of a

river where it nears the sea; fresh and salt water mix.

Student Worksheet 1 (cont’d)

River life In an awesome avian spectacle: every spring and fall, more than greater snow geese stage in the tidal marsh of the Cap Tourmente National Wildlife Area, on the north shore of the

St. Lawrence River. The geese build up their for the 3,000-kilometre trip to their prime breeding grounds on and Bylot islands or for the 900-kilometre journey back to their wintering grounds along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Once they’re done feeding on the roots of during the fall migration, the tidal marsh at Cap

Tourmente is stripped bare. Jacques Cartier, and Jesuit priests all wrote about the great flocks at Cap Tourmente in accounts of their travels. At the beginning of the

century, the greater snow geese were near extinction. Today, their numbers stand at more than , due in part to the establishment of wildlife and restrictions on hunting.

Cultural legacy The St. Lawrence is at the heart of most major developments in early Canadian history. When

first explored the river in 1535, were already settled in communities at Stadacona (Québec City) and (Montréal). It was known as

until the early 1600s. As the main route into the interior of the continent, the

St. Lawrence was used by French explorers and traders to establish a colonial . By the mid-18th century, most of the land along the river between Montréal and Québec was divided into the long, narrow farms of the system. The mighty river served as a route for commerce, starting with the and later with . With the completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway — a system of locks, canals and channels linking the Great

Lakes and the St. Lawrence River with the Atlantic Ocean — in , the river became one of the most important transportation and industrial corridors in the world.

Student Worksheet 1 (cont’d)

Current state For centuries, the St. Lawrence River has been intensively developed. By the second half of the 20th century, its banks were largely between Montréal and Québec and its waters heavily . In 1970, the Canadian government conducted its first water-quality study of the St. Lawrence. efforts to protect the waterway have only been introduced in the last years. Some of the main sources of pollution include municipal and industrial .

A recent report by the St. Lawrence Action Plan, a Canada-Quebec initiative, indicates that the river is now than it was during the second half of the 20th century. The level of

contamination has decreased and some animal populations, such as the northern , which was on the verge of disappearing in the 1960s, have recovered. In some areas, the water is safe enough for and freshwater fish are generally fit to eat. But contaminants trapped in still present a threat to the St. Lawrence. The population is still endangered, though its population has stabilized in recent years. And the river’s continues to be affected by habitat loss and other human disturbances, as well as the invasion of foreign species.

Student Worksheet 2: Distribution and Status Of The St. Lawrence River Population Of Beluga Whales

Use the Canadian Atlas Online and The Canadian Biodiversity Project website to complete this exercise

 Canadian Atlas Online: http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas/intro.aspx?lang=En Click on > Explore the maps

 The Canadian Biodiversity Project (The Saint-Lawrence Beluga Whale): http://biology.mcgill.ca/undergra/c465a/biodiver/2000/beluga-whale/beluga-whale.htm#map

1. Use the Canadian Atlas Online to plot these locations of the attached map.

Provinces Population Centres Water Bodies Islands

Quebec Quebec City Chaleur Bay (Baie des Anticosti Chaleurs)

New Brunswick Natashquan Gulf of St. Lawrence Cape Breton

Nova Scotia Sept-Iles Saguenay River

Newfoundland and Labrador

2. Use The Saint-Lawrence Beluga Whale website to shade in the estimated present range of the Belugas (see attached). Add an appropriate title to the map.

3. Use the Corrected Estimate Table 1 from The Saint-Lawrence Beluga Whale website to draw a line graph showing the change in the Beluga population since 1977.

4. How do the numbers in Table 1 of the site compare to the numbers at the beginning of the 20th century according to The Saint-Lawrence Beluga Whale website?

5. What changed in 1979 to allow the population to rise?

6. Why do the Belugas have higher concentrations of contaminants than do other aquatic mammals in the area?

7. What diseases have been discovered in the carcasses?

8. In what other ways have humans disturbed the Belugas?

9. List three actions that have been taken to protect this population.

CANADIAN COUNCIL FOR GEOGRAPHIC EDUCATION 8 THE CANADIAN ATLAS ONLINE www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas CANADIAN COUNCIL FOR GEOGRAPHIC EDUCATION www.ccge.org