Welcome to the We are an Island, Cape Breton Island Social Studies Resource! This introduction includes tips on using the resource.

Description

We are an Island is a collection of 41 lessons on Cape Breton Island social studies topics, including geography, history, civics and current events. Each lesson is accompanied by vocabulary exercises and comprehension questions. These activities are designed to meet outcomes specified by the Nova Scotia Adult Learning Program Levels One and Two. As well, most lessons contain instructional material and/or exercises on additional communications, math, geography skills, or human relations learning outcomes.

Each lesson begins with a Word Preview box which contains words learners may not recognize by sight, words with meanings that may be unfamiliar to learners, and words whose meanings are critical to comprehending the text.

Each lesson also includes a Place Names box. This box contains the names of all places mentioned in the story portion of each lesson. In some lessons, the list of place names may get to be quite lengthy. This underlines one of the themes of the We are an Island resource; namely, that what happens on Cape Breton Island (and elsewhere) is often shaped by events in other places.

At this point, it might be timely to alert instructors regarding the use of the term “Cape Breton Island” throughout the resource. In conversation, we often refer to Cape Breton Island as “Cape Breton.” That is not the case in this resource. Why? Because there is an actual “Cape Breton” on the eastern-most point of Cape Breton Island. “Cape Breton Island” is not the same as “Cape Breton.” Therefore, some instructors may be confused when they read, in the lesson entitled “Welcome to Cape Breton County!”, that they have probably never been to Cape Breton.