Time of Transition Student Activities

From Canadian History Portal - HCO

B. Canada Comes of Age - 1945-1963 → 1. A Time of Transition → 2. Liberal Consensus → 3. The Chief: Canada and Diefenbaker → 4. End of the Golden Age →→ C. New Identities - 1963-1984

1. Time of Transition - Gallery | Stories & Texts | Web Links | Student Activities | Student Projects

Activities are colour-coded to suggest Junior, Middle and/or Senior levels of challenge.
You may find them generic enough to be useful for most levels and abilities.

Produce a bar graph of the first 1949 Newfoundland referendum on joining Canada. Produce a pie graph of the second referendum.

Divide the class in half. One half of the class will, working with a partner, compile a list of reasons supporting Newfoundland’s entrance into Canada (from the island’s perspective). The other half of the class will identify the reasons opposing Newfoundland’s entrance into Confederation.

Working in groups of three, research the origins of NATO.

Working with a partner, identify some of significant Cold War events that impacted Canada.

Write a brief but accurate definition of "Cold War."

Research Joey Smallwood, the self-identified, “last living Father of Confederation” and write a personality profile.

Working in groups of three, research one of the major NATO operations in its almost sixty years of history and deliver a PowerPoint presentation to the class on it. In the course of your presentation, try to evaluate the degree of success of the NATO mission.

Conduct a debate, either in triads or as a class, on the following resolution – Resolved that Newfoundland has been ill-served by its decision to join Canada in 1949.

Find and download Lester Pearson’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. What are the important ideas and themes he identifies in the speech.

Write an editorial, either for or against, Diefenbaker’s decision to cancel the Avro-Arrow project.

Write a brief one-to-two page essay on the theme of the Korean War as “the forgotten war.”

Working in teams of three, research, write, and then deliver the speech that Joey Smallwood might have delivered in favour of joining Canada.

Research the modern NATO group. What countries are currently in NATO? What countries want to join NATO? How have the problems and issues facing NATO changed since it was formed during the Cold War?

Winston Churchill gave a speech called the Iron Curtain Speech in 1946. This speech is considered an important speech in the early history of the Cold War between the western powers and the Soviet Union. Using the Web Links section of this chapter, read Churchill's speech. What warning is he making about the Soviet Union? What does he think western powers should do?