Active Learning Activities

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.

Virtual Voices: Navigating Suicide Prevention Through Simulation

Students engage in a virtual simulation using therapeutic techniques, risk assessment, and interventions.

Biologist Says: Mini-Game for Recalling Biology Terms

A familiar and easy to implement game to help students with recall of biological terms.

BioQuest: Mini-Game for Categorizing Biology Terms

A fun consolidating activity at the end of a topic or unit to help students categorize and consolidate biological terms.

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.

Find Someone Who… An Icebreaker With Purpose

In this activity, students try to find someone for each list item. Items highlight key issues explored in the course.

Don’t go NUTS: A Case Study on the Physiology of Stress

In this activity students apply their knowledge of the physiology of the stress response to a real-life research scenario.

An Abundance of Bells

The aim of this activity is to demonstrate that many continuous data of nature and psychology follow a normal distribution.

Blended Learning: Just in Time

This activity benefits students by exposing them to literature in their field while preparing them for the following lecture.

Rock Paper Scissors Lizard

Sustainability Development Plan (Part 1 and Part 2)

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

Disappearing Sea Otters

Students take the role of an ecologist and try to analyze species behaviours and predict population change.

Why Health & Safety is Essential to Recreation Leadership

Darwin’s Finches: Natural Selection

In this game-based activity, students learn about natural selection, evolution of traits, and data collection and analysis.  

Poetic Literary Jeopardy

Students learn literary and poetic elements that will be part of their fundamental 'toolbox' for the rest of the course.

Short Stories and Social Realism: Building an Essay Toolkit

In this multiple-class activity, students build a toolkit of essay-writing skills through analyzing a short story text.

National Building Code Jeopardy

Cycles of Matter

Students are assigned to groups and presented with a take-home reading assignment on the transformation of matter and energy.