Learning What Makes Innovations Helpful
Exploring how everyday ideas and tools help people and the land.
Overview
Students explore the places they use every day and learn that these spaces are part of the land. They look at everyday innovations and discuss how they help people and the environment, then draw and share their own examples. As a class, they sort ideas into groups and create a simple chart showing what makes an innovation helpful. Finally, students choose a place they see often and think of one idea that could help make it better.
Instructions
What you'll need
- Innovation Image Cards
- 4 different coloured white board markers
- Chart paper or whiteboard
- Crayons, coloured pencils, or pencils
Learning Launch
- Begin by asking students to think about the places they live, learn, and play. Offer examples such as:
- Your classroom
- The schoolyard
- Their neighborhood
- Parks or green spaces
- Explain that all of these places are part of the land, which can include soil, water, air, animals and people
- Inform students that at these places, people may build or design things to help better these places. These are Innovations, which are things people make or set up to make life easier and safer
- Use the Innovation Image Cards and/or real objects in your school to show learners examples of familiar innovations & everyday places
- With each photo/object ask students:
- Where and when do we use this item?
- How can this innovation help people?
- How might it support the land?
- Use your whiteboard to write kids answers and thoughts, using short-form and sketches to display them
- Assign or allow each learners to choose one of the examples from the Innovation Image Cards. Invite students to draw a picture to show how their chosen innovation helps.
- Once they finish drawing, ask each student to share what they drew or wrote and let a few of the other students share more examples of how this innovation is helpful for themselves, their family, or the land.
Developing Understanding
- Explain that helpful ideas, like Innovations, get made by people paying attention to what people and places need.
- Share with students how Indigenous people survived and lived in Canada by watching the land closely and would notice how things changes and were connected
- Get students to look at their drawings and think about what their classmates said, and the chart. Ask if anything new should be added to the chart on the whiteboard
- Use three different whiteboard markers and use one colour to sort the ideas on the whiteboard into “keeps people safe” another colour that represents “helping the land, and the last one that connects ideas to “make things easier for people”.
- Get students to sort these ideas and get them to reflect on why those ideas may belong to the same groupings.
- On a sheet of big paper or another part of the whiteboard, as a class, identify ways of recognizing a helpful innovation. Make the title “An Innovation is helpful when it…” some examples are:
- Makes something easier or safer
- Helps people care for themselves or others
- Helps us take care of the land
- Considering the rules discussed. Ask students:
- What is one place you see everyday that could be made better?
- What idea from today could help that
Modify or extend this activity
Modifications:
- Inviting learners to explain their ideas orally instead of drawing or writing.
- Working in pairs, small groups, or one-on-one with a caregiver.
- Using fewer examples (3–4) if learners need more time to discuss each one.
- Providing sentence starters (e.g., “This helps because…”) for learners who need language support.
Extensions:
- Inviting learners to observe their school or community spaces to notice helpful innovations in real places
- Asking learners to identify who benefits most from an innovation and why.
- Comparing how the same innovation might be helpful in different places (home, park, school, community centre).
- Encouraging learners to notice how innovations help people use energy or materials wisely.
- Revisiting the activity in another season to notice how needs and helpful designs change.
Curriculum Fit
Core Competencies
Communication
- Focusing on Intent and Purpose
- Working Collectively
- Determining Common Purpose
Thinking
- Questioning and Investigating
- Designing and Developing
- Reflecting and Assessing
- Creating and Innovating
Personal and Social
- Contributing to Community and Caring for the Environment
- Resolving Problems
Science 1-3
Big ideas
- Matter has observable properties and can chance (Gr.1)
- Materials can be changed through different processes (Gr.2)
- Innovations can protect living things, conserve resources and reduce harm (Gr.3)
Content
- Environmental awareness (Gr.1)
- Indigenous knowledge and connection to land (Gr.1)
- Effects and impacts of humans on their land and environment (Gr.1-2)
- How materials and tools are used to solve problems (Gr.2)
Curricular Competencies
Questioning & Predicting
- Making predictions about innovations and the effects of human actions based on prior experiences and observations (Gr.1-2)
- Asking questions that demonstrate curiosity about the patterns, behaviors and features of environments (Gr.1-2)
- Asking questions about living, learning, and playing in places (Gr1-3)
- Wonder how innovations help people and the land (Gr.3)
Planning and Conducting
- Making simple observations about innovations (Gr.1-3)
- Represent thinking through drawings and simple sketches (Gr.3)
Processing & Analyzing Data and Information
- Noticing similarities and differences in observations about innovations (Gr.1-2)
- Recognizing relationships between innovations and environmental impact (Gr.2)
- Sort innovations into categories (Gr.1-3)
- Compare different innovations and how they affect people and the environment (Gr.3)
Evaluating
- Considering if observations make sense (Gr.1)
- Evaluating how thinking has changed (Gr.2)
- Identify which innovations are helpful and explain why (Gr.3)
Applying and Innovating
- Using imagination to think of ways to support living things and the land (Gr.1)
- Applying knowledge of environment, materials, or relationships in creating innovations that are helpful (Gr.2-3)
- Suggest ways to improve a familiar place (Gr.3)
Communicating
- Listening to classmates and building on others’ ideas (Gr.1)
- Participating in group discussion to explain thinking and respond to others (Gr.2)
- Suggest ways to improve familiar place (Gr.3)
Social Studies 1-3
Big Ideas
- Living things have features and behaviors that help them survive (Gr.1)
- Observable patterns and relationships exist in the natural world (Gr.1)
- People, places and events shape identity and environment (Gr.1-3)
- Indigenous peoples have always cared for and lived in relationships with land (Gr.1-3)
- Explore how places influence the types of innovations people create (Gr.2-3)
- Consider how innovations reflect care, responsibility, and citizenship (Gr.3)
Content
- Indigenous ways of knowing (Gr.1)
- Responsibilities in communities (Gr.1-3)
- Relationship to the land (Gr.1-2)
- How people adapt and shape environment through innovations (Gr.3)
- Purposes of community features and structures that support wellbeing (Gr.3)
Curricular Competencies
- Sorting innovations and deciding what makes them “helpful” (Gr.1)
- Understanding Indigenous ways of watching the land (Gr.1-3)
- Recognizing innovations in daily places (Gr.1-3)
- Identifying how innovations support safety, people, and the land (Gr.2-3)
- Make connections between people’s needs and innovations (Gr.3)
- Participate respectfully in a group discussion (Gr.3)
- Suggest ideas that help others, protect the land, or improve safety (Gr.3)
Assessments
In this activity, opportunities for assessment are integrated through observation, discussion, and drawing. These include:
- Using initial discussions and idea grouping to gain insight into learners’ understanding of helpfulness
- Observing how learners connect innovations to land and everyday needs
- Listening to oral explanations for evidence of reasoning and understanding
- Using drawings and explanations as evidence of communication and thinking
Teaching Notes
Learning from the Land
Use the term land intentionally rather than nature. Many Indigenous peoples view the land as the first teacher and learn through close, respectful attention to relationships among all parts of the land. Many Indigenous cultures view land, water, plants, animals, and other elements as living and deserving of care and respect.
Encourage learners to notice relationships with these elements, such as:
- shade keeping places cool
- rain helping plants grow
- shelter protecting living things
These observations support the understanding of how people learn from the land and design helpful solutions.
Supporting Connections to Helpful Innovations and Energy Use
Where appropriate, encourage learners to notice how some designs use light, shade, air, or water in thoughtful ways.
For example:
- windows letting in natural light
- trees providing shade
- blinds helping control heat
- rain barrels collecting water
The goal is to help learners see how thoughtful design makes things easier and safer, cares for people and the land, and supports the wise use of resources.
Indigenous Perspectives and Respectful Leaning
This activity aligns with the First Peoples Principles of Learning by:
- Connecting the well-being of community, land, and self to the creation of innovations.
- Representing that learning can be holistic, reflective and relational in exploring innovations.
- Understanding roles and responsibilities when creating.
Teachers and caregivers are not expected to teach specific Indigenous knowledge. The focus is on shared values such as caring for the land, learning through observation, and understanding relationships. These shared values can be grown on with these resources.
- The Land Is Our Identity: Indigenous Perspectives
- First Nations' Relationship to the Land
- About the Indigenous Innovation Initiative — Indigenous Innovation Initiative
Observation as a Gateway to Innovation
Offer quiet observation when possible. Give learners time to notice details before naming or explaining.
Value a wide range of observations and perspectives. This supports curiosity, confidence, and thoughtful engagement.
Supporting Student Voice and Expression
Learners may show understanding in different ways, including:
- drawing without labels
- explaining ideas orally
- using gestures or pointing
When learners share, consider:
- asking questions to clarify thinking
- encouraging listening to others’ ideas
- affirming that there can be multiple reasonable ideas and responses
This helps learners see themselves as capable thinkers and contributors.
