Activities & Programs

Visit the Museum

Grade 7 - New France and British North America: A Healthcare Perspective

PROGRAM PLAN

Lesson 1:

Pre-visit activities, included in our package, to be facilitated by the classroom teacher (60 minutes).

Lesson 2:

The Museum teacher's visit to your classroom will require at about two hours of class time, and can fill an afternoon, if you wish.  It will involve a PowerPoint introducation, then group work, and finally a debriefing, summary activity.  Working in groups, students will complete activities at the following five stations:

• Station 1:  Medical practices before 1850: Cholera in general
  
  Through illustrations, artefacts, and written documents, students discover how doctors treated cholera victims before it was known that a bacterium causes cholera.

• Station 2:  Medical practices before 1850: The Case of Private Mullany
  
  Students will measure out "medications" to reconstruct treatments experienced by an actual young soldier who contracted cholera in Quebec City in 1832, and survived!

• Station 3:  Development of Public Health
  
  Although cholera and other epidemics were not the main causes of death during the nineteenth century, they appeared so suddenly, attacked so ferociously, and killed so many in such short periods of time that they, cholera in particular, led to the development of Public Health, that is, to a government taking responsibility for organizing measures that would help avoid or minimize these diseases in areas under its jurisdiction.Through a graphing exercise, students investigate patterns of emigration from the British Isles to British North America and disease epidemics in British North America.

• Station 4:  When First Nations & Europeans met: Healthcare consequences
  
  Through an active game emphasizing the mechanics of immunity, students discover why European diseases had such a devastating effect on some First Nations' peoples.

• Station 5:  Early Canadians providing Health Care
  
  Students learn about early Canadian healthcare providers and their contributions to the understanding of disease and its treatment, and to Canadian history.  Students assess which of these they believe should be added to the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Lesson 3:

Post-visit activities, included in our package, to be administered by the classroom teacher.