Calgary Response to Growth (two-day lesson)

Overview

In this two-day lesson, students will read about some of the ways that the city of Calgary has responded to urban growth. They will learn that seemingly simple decisions about how to curtail growth are, in fact, quite challenging. They will critique and propose some possible solutions to the problem of urban growth in Calgary.

Learning Goals:

• Students will learn about some of the ways that the city of Calgary has responded to urban growth.
• Students will read and analyze primary documents.
• Students will learn that there are many conflicting factors to consider when making policy decisions.

DAY ONE

Website Materials:

• “Tsuu T’ina”
• “New Housing”
• “UniCity”
• “Crestmont”
• “’The Renaissance’”
• “Traffic”

Step 1: 15 minutes: Introduction, forced-choice

a) Explain that the metropolitan region of Calgary has been growing very quickly, and the growth has raised a number of issues and questions.

Students have to agree or disagree (forced-choice) to the following statements. For each, ask for a show of hands to see where students stand, and call on a few students to articulate their reasoning:

• If a metropolitan region experiences a lot of traffic, it should build more roads.
• The people who live in the suburbs of a big metropolitan city should pay taxes to the city since they benefit from the city’s facilities and services.
• The people who live in the suburbs of a big metropolitan city shouldn’t pay taxes to the city because they don’t live there.
• A growing city should build big, luxury houses in order to attract wealthy residents.
• If a metropolitan region is surrounded by unsettled land, it should just keep building houses on that land as long as there’s a demand.

Step 2: 30 minutes: Read documents

a) Arrange students into six groups and assign each group one of the following worksheets:

• “Tsuu T’ina”
• “New Housing”
• “UniCity”
• “Crestmont”
• “’The Renaissance’”
• “Traffic”

b) In groups, students should answer the questions on the worksheet.

c) Then, as a group, students should formulate an answer to the following questions:

• Based on this document, how has the city of Calgary responded to growth?
• What dilemmas or issues is the city facing with regard to this response?

Step 3: 5 minutes: Hand out worksheets

Hand out to every student a packet with the five additional worksheets that they have not yet read.

Homework

Students read the rest of the worksheets, but they do not have to answer questions. Students should bring all materials to class tomorrow.

DAY TWO

Step 1: 20 minutes: Jigsaw

a) Arrange students in groups such that each group contains one representative from yesterday’s six groups. That is, each new group should have a student who has answered the questions to one of the six documents.

b) Each student in the new group shares his/her answers to the two final questions from yesterday’s class:

• Based on this document, how has the city of Calgary responded to growth?
• What dilemmas or issues is the city facing with regard to this response?

c) Emphasize that students should not take longer than 2-3 minutes to share and explain their document. However, the other members of their group may ask clarifying questions.

Step 2: 15 minutes: Group work

In their new groups, students should come up with a proposal in response to the following prompt:

How should the city of Calgary respond to growth?

Step 3: 15 minutes: Presentations

Each group presents their proposal. Students should take notes when each group presents because they will need to remember the other presentations in order to complete their homework.

Homework

Write 2-3 paragraphs responding to the following questions:

EVALUATION CRITERIA:

In order to meet standards for this homework assignment, a student should fulfill the following criteria: