THE DOG LOT
EDUCATIONAL MATERIAL FOR HIGH SHCOOL STUDENTS
The dog lot is one of 9 podcasts produced for the Icefjord Centre in Ilulissat by Katrine Nyland.
BOOK CREATOR SOM REDSKAB TIL UNDERVISNING
The Dog Lot is a student’s book associated with the podcast The Dog Lot. The duration of the podcast is 5:08 minutes.
The activities have been designed to focus on the investigative, experimental, and creative approach of the students to learning. The process consists of three steps:
- Preparation before listening to the podcast
- Listening to and working with the podcast
- Further work with topics and insights from the podcast
It is a good idea to hear the podcast before presenting it to the students.
Cross-curricular – languages, science with the main emphasis on biology.
- Students acquire a fundamental knowledge of the Greenland sled dog.
- They obtain an understanding of the importance of ice for life around the Icefjord.
- They practise their skills in communication and collaboration.
We recommend that students work in small groups, pairs or individually. Depending on what suits each student best and the competences to be developed. Keep in mind that your best friend is not necessarily the one you collaborate best with. Working together is about working together and not just being together.
BOOK CREATOR SOM REDSKAB TIL UNDERVISNING
The Dog Lot is a student’s book associated with the podcast The Dog Lot. The duration of the podcast is 5:08 minutes.
The activities have been designed to focus on the investigative, experimental, and creative approach of the students to learning. The process consists of three steps:
- Preparation before listening to the podcast
- Listening to and working with the podcast
- Further work with topics and insights from the podcast
It is a good idea to hear the podcast before presenting it to the students.
Cross-curricular – languages, science with the main emphasis on biology.
- Students acquire a fundamental knowledge of the Greenland sled dog.
- They obtain an understanding of the importance of ice for life around the Icefjord.
- They practise their skills in communication and collaboration.
We recommend that students work in small groups, pairs or individually. Depending on what suits each student best and the competences to be developed. Keep in mind that your best friend is not necessarily the one you collaborate best with. Working together is about working together and not just being together.
The dog lot
The students meet the Icefjord Centre in four pictures: summer and winter, the Kangia glacier front and the framework of the building. On page 6-7 there is a text and three videos showing the erection of the Icefjord Centre.
In class you can talk about:
- What the Icefjord Centre is.
- What the purpose of an institution like the Icefjord Centre is.
- What it looks like around the centre.
- The difference between summer and winter, where you live as well as in Greenland.
The students should clarify what they already know about Greenland before starting work on the podcast. In this podcast focus is on sled dogs but you may have worked with some of the other podcasts or in other ways acquired knowledge that can be activated in advance.
On page 8 there is a link to Google Maps. Here the students can try to locate the Icefjord Centre on the map.
You can also experiment with letting them find the places mentioned in the podcast, so that they get an idea of where they are situated. These are the places:
- Ilulissat
- The Icefjord
- Northern Greenland
- Hjørring
Furthermore, on page 8 there are four questions to help the students get going. Here are suggestions for a few more:
- How many people live in Greenland?
- What are sled dogs used for?
- How big an area does the inland ice cover?
Page 9 is intended for answers. The students are free to use whatever form of expression they prefer. Some possibilities in Book Creator:
- make a model/a drawing by hand, take a picture of it and insert
- find pictures in Book Creator about Greenland and insert them. The pictures can be complemented with explanations in words.
- record an audio file telling what you know about Greenland
- – or a combination of the above
On page 10-11 you find a map of Greenland, with six red markers. Let the students place the markers where they know towns or settlements in Greenland. They can write the name of the town or settlement in the field next to the marker.
Sound recording, insertion of pictures and text: see instructions 1, 2 and 3 here.
Now it is time for the students to listen to the podcast The Dog Lot. On page 12 an introduction to the podcast is given followed by a short instruction. Clicking the picture on page 13 will start the podcast.
It is recommended that the students listen in pairs or small groups. After listening to the podcast, the students could spend some minutes talking about what they just heard.
On page 14-15 the students are to make a summary of what they heard in the podcast. They may do this in various ways:
- write a text
- record an audio file
- make a model/drawing
- something completely different that they are used to with note taking methods and summaries
- – or a combination of the above
Sound recording, insertion of pictures and text: see instructions 1, 2 and 3 here.
Now it is time for a joint review in class where the students’ work on pages 14 and 15 is discussed. The aim is to prepare the students for making their own reference books that they can revisit during work with the podcast. In this reference book the students should explain the meaning of the concepts and keywords from your discussion – by means of text, sound, pictures, drawings or a combination of these.
You could begin by asking the students to name the concepts and keywords they heard in the podcast. Then you can add those mentioned below, central to the podcast and important for further work.
- Culture – consists of the sum of values, habits, traditions, knowledge and attitudes which characterize a society or an individual in their own historical and geographical context.
In the podcast the students are introduced to a hunting and fishing culture. Since the first immigrations at Thule about 4-5.000 years ago Greenland has been dependent on nature’s resources in the form of land and marine mammals, birds and fish. Hunting and fishing are still the most important livelihood for Inuit and Greenlandic society. These natural conditions have led to the development of a unique culture, built upon proud traditions.
What do you know about the culture of Greenland?
What other cultures are you acquainted with?
- Cornerstone – a cornerstone is part of the supporting foundation, an important precondition for or component of something. The dogs are a cornerstone of the Greenlandic hunting and fishing culture. The dogs transport the catch, fish and people across ice and mountains, where no other means are available. The dogs are a cornerstone of transport.
Why are the dogs a cornerstone in this culture?
Could you be a hunter and fisher without having dogs?
- Lifeblood – is an element that is a critical condition for something being able to function. The dogs are the lifeblood of the community where they in generation after generation have hauled the catch home to the settlement and transported people between settlements and continents: the dogs are the condition for getting the catch back home. And they are vital for transporting people between settlements and continents.
What does it mean that something is the lifeblood of a community?
What is the lifeblood of your everyday life?
- Cycle – a cycle is characterized by something returning more or less regularly, repeating itself. A calendar day has a known and fixed course. It is divided into day and night. The seasons come and go in a certain order. The ice has a cycle. The movements of the ice are influenced by cold and heat (the cycle of the seasons), which in turn influence the conditions of life for the game animals. The cycle of the game animals follows the seasonal cycle of the ice.
How does the cycle of the ice affect working with dog sledges?
Which factors can affect the seasons and thus the cycle of the ice?
- Adaptation – to survive all living beings must adapt to the environment surrounding them. When an animal has to live in a certain environment, it needs to adjust to the given conditions of life to survive.
An animal may adapt to its environment in several ways. Through natural selection the animal will develop its anatomy and behaviour to become optimal for the prevailing conditions of life.
An example of natural selection is the gradual development of fur suited for extreme weather as has been the case with the Greenland sled dog. Dogs that have not developed a fur able to protect them, will die. In this way the genetic advantages will be passed on to the offspring of the animal, and only the fittest will survive. See further Qimmeq, The Greenland Sled Dog, p. 13.
How, do you imagine, did the Greenland sled dog adapt to a life in Greenland?
How did we humans adapt to the life we have now?
Do you know other examples of animals adjusting to their environment?
- Energy – an animal needs nourishment in the form of carbohydrates, lipids and protein to survive.
Living organisms are divided into two groups, autotrophic and heterotrophic. Autotrophs are able to produce nourishment in the form of carbohydrates; plants do this by making glucose through photosynthesis. Heterotrophs get nourishment by eating other living organisms, thus obtaining lipids, carbohydrates as well as protein.
Lipids, carbohydrates and protein, also known as nutrients, are used to maintain a variety of processes in our cells, keeping us alive.
We use these nutrients as a source of energy in our combustion (respiration) and as building blocks in the cells of the body. See further Qimmeq, The Greenland Sled Dog, p. 42.
What do you know about the food pyramid?
What do we need most of: lipids, carbohydrates or protein?
Do dogs and humans need the same proportions of these nutrients?
Sound recording, insertion of pictures and text: see instructions 1, 2 and 3 here.
Now the students will watch three films about the sled dog in modern Greenland. The videos on page 18-23 are borrowed from the research project QIMMEQ; they zoom in on people who all have the sled dog as part of their everyday life. Two more videos can be found at the home page of the project. They are in Greenlandic language with English subtitles.
The pages contain a short description of the videos and some questions to help the students reflect on what they see.
After the students have seen the videos and reflected on the questions it is time for a joint review in class.
To finish work with the videos, time should be allocated so that the students can update their reference books on page 16-17 with new knowledge.
Now the students must imagine that they are employed at the Icefjord Centre and have been given the task to create a new exhibition informing about the Greenland sled dog. They must deal with its biology and origin, while the rest is their choice.
On page 24 you find a link to Qimmeq, the above mentioned book about the Greenland sled dog, where the students can gather information.
The students choose which form and which medium they will use for the production and communication of their product. The sole requirement is that it should be suitable for forming part of an exhibition at the Icefjord Centre. Examples could be: a podcast/audio story, a video, a photo report, an animated movie. Only the imagination of the students sets limits.
Organize the students in pairs or small groups. Depending on what suits each student best and the competences to be developed.
During work with the exhibition the teacher should allocate some time to let the students give each other positive criticism. This consists in assessing: what is good – and what might be done better. The teacher will support and guide this process. In Austin’s Butterfly you can find inspiration for constructive and positive criticism; the video is about students at the youngest level, but its points may be transposed to all levels.
When work is finished, the students will present their products in a joint “exhibition at the Icefjord Centre”. This may be in digital form or arranged as a kind of exhibition preview. If the exhibition is presented physically at the school, it could be open to anyone that might be a target group.
Make a video of the exhibition so that students in Greenland and around the world may learn something about the Greenland sled dog.
Review in class the collected knowledge about Greenland. Update the reference books with new concepts.
The creations of the students are saved so that they may continue working on them with the next podcasts.
The podcast The Dog Lot was made for the Icefjord Centre in Ilulissat by Katrine Nyland.
Graphics by Oncotype.
Teaching material for the podcast has been produced by Lotte Brinkmann and Daniella Maria Manuel, Anholt Læringsværksted.
The teaching material The Dog Lot is published under a Creative Commons crediting licence CC:BY. The texts, assignments and pictures can be shared, reproduced and adapted, with the proviso that “The Dog Lot by the Icefjord Centre Ilulissat” is credited as the source.
The children’s non-fiction book “Qimmeq – kalaallit qimmiat qimuttoq – the Greenland sled dog” was produced by Anne Katrine Gjerløff, Ilisimatusarfik and the Natural History Museum of Denmark.
The students meet the Icefjord Centre in four pictures: summer and winter, the Kangia glacier front and the framework of the building. On page 6-7 there is a text and three videos showing the erection of the Icefjord Centre.
In class you can talk about:
- What the Icefjord Centre is.
- What the purpose of an institution like the Icefjord Centre is.
- What it looks like around the centre.
- The difference between summer and winter, where you live as well as in Greenland.
The students should clarify what they already know about Greenland before starting work on the podcast. In this podcast focus is on sled dogs but you may have worked with some of the other podcasts or in other ways acquired knowledge that can be activated in advance.
On page 8 there is a link to Google Maps. Here the students can try to locate the Icefjord Centre on the map.
You can also experiment with letting them find the places mentioned in the podcast, so that they get an idea of where they are situated. These are the places:
- Ilulissat
- The Icefjord
- Northern Greenland
- Hjørring
Furthermore, on page 8 there are four questions to help the students get going. Here are suggestions for a few more:
- How many people live in Greenland?
- What are sled dogs used for?
- How big an area does the inland ice cover?
Page 9 is intended for answers. The students are free to use whatever form of expression they prefer. Some possibilities in Book Creator:
- make a model/a drawing by hand, take a picture of it and insert
- find pictures in Book Creator about Greenland and insert them. The pictures can be complemented with explanations in words.
- record an audio file telling what you know about Greenland
- – or a combination of the above
On page 10-11 you find a map of Greenland, with six red markers. Let the students place the markers where they know towns or settlements in Greenland. They can write the name of the town or settlement in the field next to the marker.
Sound recording, insertion of pictures and text: see instructions 1, 2 and 3 here.
Now it is time for the students to listen to the podcast The Dog Lot. On page 12 an introduction to the podcast is given followed by a short instruction. Clicking the picture on page 13 will start the podcast.
It is recommended that the students listen in pairs or small groups. After listening to the podcast, the students could spend some minutes talking about what they just heard.
On page 14-15 the students are to make a summary of what they heard in the podcast. They may do this in various ways:
- write a text
- record an audio file
- make a model/drawing
- something completely different that they are used to with note taking methods and summaries
- – or a combination of the above
Sound recording, insertion of pictures and text: see instructions 1, 2 and 3 here.
Now it is time for a joint review in class where the students’ work on pages 14 and 15 is discussed. The aim is to prepare the students for making their own reference books that they can revisit during work with the podcast. In this reference book the students should explain the meaning of the concepts and keywords from your discussion – by means of text, sound, pictures, drawings or a combination of these.
You could begin by asking the students to name the concepts and keywords they heard in the podcast. Then you can add those mentioned below, central to the podcast and important for further work.
- Culture – consists of the sum of values, habits, traditions, knowledge and attitudes which characterize a society or an individual in their own historical and geographical context.
In the podcast the students are introduced to a hunting and fishing culture. Since the first immigrations at Thule about 4-5.000 years ago Greenland has been dependent on nature’s resources in the form of land and marine mammals, birds and fish. Hunting and fishing are still the most important livelihood for Inuit and Greenlandic society. These natural conditions have led to the development of a unique culture, built upon proud traditions.
What do you know about the culture of Greenland?
What other cultures are you acquainted with?
- Cornerstone – a cornerstone is part of the supporting foundation, an important precondition for or component of something. The dogs are a cornerstone of the Greenlandic hunting and fishing culture. The dogs transport the catch, fish and people across ice and mountains, where no other means are available. The dogs are a cornerstone of transport.
Why are the dogs a cornerstone in this culture?
Could you be a hunter and fisher without having dogs?
- Lifeblood – is an element that is a critical condition for something being able to function. The dogs are the lifeblood of the community where they in generation after generation have hauled the catch home to the settlement and transported people between settlements and continents: the dogs are the condition for getting the catch back home. And they are vital for transporting people between settlements and continents.
What does it mean that something is the lifeblood of a community?
What is the lifeblood of your everyday life?
- Cycle – a cycle is characterized by something returning more or less regularly, repeating itself. A calendar day has a known and fixed course. It is divided into day and night. The seasons come and go in a certain order. The ice has a cycle. The movements of the ice are influenced by cold and heat (the cycle of the seasons), which in turn influence the conditions of life for the game animals. The cycle of the game animals follows the seasonal cycle of the ice.
How does the cycle of the ice affect working with dog sledges?
Which factors can affect the seasons and thus the cycle of the ice?
- Adaptation – to survive all living beings must adapt to the environment surrounding them. When an animal has to live in a certain environment, it needs to adjust to the given conditions of life to survive.
An animal may adapt to its environment in several ways. Through natural selection the animal will develop its anatomy and behaviour to become optimal for the prevailing conditions of life.
An example of natural selection is the gradual development of fur suited for extreme weather as has been the case with the Greenland sled dog. Dogs that have not developed a fur able to protect them, will die. In this way the genetic advantages will be passed on to the offspring of the animal, and only the fittest will survive. See further Qimmeq, The Greenland Sled Dog, p. 13.
How, do you imagine, did the Greenland sled dog adapt to a life in Greenland?
How did we humans adapt to the life we have now?
Do you know other examples of animals adjusting to their environment?
- Energy – an animal needs nourishment in the form of carbohydrates, lipids and protein to survive.
Living organisms are divided into two groups, autotrophic and heterotrophic. Autotrophs are able to produce nourishment in the form of carbohydrates; plants do this by making glucose through photosynthesis. Heterotrophs get nourishment by eating other living organisms, thus obtaining lipids, carbohydrates as well as protein.
Lipids, carbohydrates and protein, also known as nutrients, are used to maintain a variety of processes in our cells, keeping us alive.
We use these nutrients as a source of energy in our combustion (respiration) and as building blocks in the cells of the body. See further Qimmeq, The Greenland Sled Dog, p. 42.
What do you know about the food pyramid?
What do we need most of: lipids, carbohydrates or protein?
Do dogs and humans need the same proportions of these nutrients?
Sound recording, insertion of pictures and text: see instructions 1, 2 and 3 here.
Now the students will watch three films about the sled dog in modern Greenland. The videos on page 18-23 are borrowed from the research project QIMMEQ; they zoom in on people who all have the sled dog as part of their everyday life. Two more videos can be found at the home page of the project. They are in Greenlandic language with English subtitles.
The pages contain a short description of the videos and some questions to help the students reflect on what they see.
After the students have seen the videos and reflected on the questions it is time for a joint review in class.
To finish work with the videos, time should be allocated so that the students can update their reference books on page 16-17 with new knowledge.
Now the students must imagine that they are employed at the Icefjord Centre and have been given the task to create a new exhibition informing about the Greenland sled dog. They must deal with its biology and origin, while the rest is their choice.
On page 24 you find a link to Qimmeq, the above mentioned book about the Greenland sled dog, where the students can gather information.
The students choose which form and which medium they will use for the production and communication of their product. The sole requirement is that it should be suitable for forming part of an exhibition at the Icefjord Centre. Examples could be: a podcast/audio story, a video, a photo report, an animated movie. Only the imagination of the students sets limits.
Organize the students in pairs or small groups. Depending on what suits each student best and the competences to be developed.
During work with the exhibition the teacher should allocate some time to let the students give each other positive criticism. This consists in assessing: what is good – and what might be done better. The teacher will support and guide this process. In Austin’s Butterfly you can find inspiration for constructive and positive criticism; the video is about students at the youngest level, but its points may be transposed to all levels.
When work is finished, the students will present their products in a joint “exhibition at the Icefjord Centre”. This may be in digital form or arranged as a kind of exhibition preview. If the exhibition is presented physically at the school, it could be open to anyone that might be a target group.
Make a video of the exhibition so that students in Greenland and around the world may learn something about the Greenland sled dog.
Review in class the collected knowledge about Greenland. Update the reference books with new concepts.
The creations of the students are saved so that they may continue working on them with the next podcasts.
The podcast The Dog Lot was made for the Icefjord Centre in Ilulissat by Katrine Nyland.
Graphics by Oncotype.
Teaching material for the podcast has been produced by Lotte Brinkmann and Daniella Maria Manuel, Anholt Læringsværksted.
The teaching material The Dog Lot is published under a Creative Commons crediting licence CC:BY. The texts, assignments and pictures can be shared, reproduced and adapted, with the proviso that “The Dog Lot by the Icefjord Centre Ilulissat” is credited as the source.
The children’s non-fiction book “Qimmeq – kalaallit qimmiat qimuttoq – the Greenland sled dog” was produced by Anne Katrine Gjerløff, Ilisimatusarfik and the Natural History Museum of Denmark.
