Active Learning Activities

Spinning the Data? Thinking Critically about Maps

Students create choropleth maps to explore how maps can inform, persuade and mislead.

Take it Outside: A Field Trip in Three Acts

This activity serves as a field trip template to engage students with pre, during, and post-visit observations and analysis.

Let Me Draw You a Picture…

Students use visual thinking to diagram / illustrate a subject with the only criteria being they have expert knowledge of it.

Earth History Walk

A self-guided walk exploring how – and why – Earth changed over its 4.6 billion year history.

Drawing to Learn: Doing Science is more Complex that You Think

Students draw a diagram of how they think scientists "do science." These are improved then compared with an expert diagram.

100 Years of Work

This is a jigsaw activity where students map key developments in workplace design over 100 years.

Keeping Up With the Trends

This activity is aimed at getting students to write sound, scientific rationales for observed phenomena.

From Bauhaus to Britney: A Catchall Timeline

Students map key movements in Architecture and Design alongside social, political, artistic, economic, and tech milestones.

Crossing Dimensions: A Math Odyssey into Cross Products

In groups, students learn about orthogonality and cross products by creating geometrical shapes.

Decoding Decimal, Binary & Octal: Number System Adventures

In teams, students explore the binary number system and create parameters for an octal number system.

Crash Course: Collision Theory

Students use PhET simulation to learn how factors affect reaction rate (collision theory) through hands-on activities

To Pass or Not to Pass: Acting out Membrane Transport

Aim of the activity is to increase students’ understanding of molecules’ movement through the cell membrane.

Instructional Survey

The aim of this activity is to provide students with an overview of survey design and execution.

Solving World Issues: One Smartphone at a Time

The purpose of this activity is to familiarize students with the potential of online tools for problem-solving.

This Field Day of Mine

This activity takes a look at the environmental impact of mining and the quantification of environmental contaminants.

Name that Molecule! / Nommez cette Molécule!

Building Effective Teams

Sustainability Development Plan (Part 1 and Part 2)

In this activity, students learn to define sustainability and apply this to a single Montreal neighbourhood. 

Let’s Role Play the French Revolution!

Family HiStories of Migration

Students interview two members of their family to collect information about their family history and present it in class.

Reflective Reading on Islam

Students use homework questions to prompt a deeper engagement with the reading material to generate better class discussion.

A Self Introduction to Nomenclature in Chemistry

In this activity, students are presented with the concepts of nomenclature in organic chemistry to encourage self learning.

Biomimicry Pin-ups

Do You Know Your Stereochemistry?

Students collaborate and learn from each other on how to interpret molecules in 3D based on molecular drawings.