CBC Archives

Provide students with magazines and newspapers that they can cut apart, as well as scissors, glue, and markers. Ask: What products are manufactured from Canada’s forests? Have students spend about 15 minutes finding and clipping such products, then create a class collage on chart paper using their clippings. As a class, discuss the products shown in the collage. Ask: What forest products does Canada export? Where in Canada does the forest industry have a big influence on the economy? Write students’ responses on the chart paper. Post the collage for student reference during the activity.

Direct groups of students to the topic Clearcutting and Logging: The War of the Woods on the CBC Radio and Television Archives Web site, focusing on the clips about specific regions of the country. Students can also explore the Additional Clips. Students should record as much data as possible about forestry in the following regions: British Columbia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Manitoba.

In their groups, students will discuss and summarize the importance of the forest industry to the economies of the various regions and to Canada as a whole. Students will prepare a presentation, in the media of their choice (a report, a campaign poster, a newspaper article), to share their information about the impact of the forest industry on one of the regions they investigated. All presentations should incorporate the use of a map.

Have each group present its work to the class. Students should be prepared to explain the importance of the forest industry to the region they chose and how recent controversies over such practices as clearcutting have affected the region.

Students can write a letter to the editor as either a representative of the forest industry or as an environmentalist, supporting or criticizing the forest industry in their own region or in Canada as a whole.