Exploring Canadian Geography

This course builds on learning in Grades 7 and 8 in geography. Students will explore relationships within and between Canada’s natural and human systems and how they interconnect with other parts of the world. Students will also examine environmental and economic issues, and their impact related to topics such as natural resources and industries, careers, land use and responsible development, and sustainability. In addition, students will understand the connections that diverse communities and individuals have with the physical environment and each other throughout Canada, including First Nations, Métis, and Inuit perspectives. Students will apply geographic thinking, use the geographic inquiry process, and use geospatial technologies throughout their investigations.

1. I.

   Examine how Canada’s climate, landforms, and natural processes shape where and how people live.

2. II.

   Investigate how Canada manages its natural resources and industries, and weigh the trade-offs of responsible land use and development.

3. III.

   Explore the connections that diverse communities, including First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, hold with the land and with each other.

4. IV.

   Learn to read maps and geospatial tools, and to ask sharp questions about real environmental and economic issues.

DeliveryOnline

Delivered fully online through Vaughan College's learning platform, with live teacher support. Online students can also call into the live in-person classroom through Google Classroom anytime they want extra guidance.

Fast-trackAvailable

Complete the credit in a condensed schedule. Useful for upgrading, course recovery, or summer acceleration.

Credit value1.0 OSSD credit

Counts toward the 30 credits required for the Ontario Secondary School Diploma.

Every Vaughan College course follows Ontario’s Growing Success policy. Assessment is continuous: teachers gather evidence of learning through observation, conversation, and student work, and give feedback that helps a student improve before the work is graded.

Evaluation — the judgement that produces a mark — measures achievement of the Ontario curriculum expectations across four categories: Knowledge and Understanding, Thinking, Communication, and Application. A student’s grade reflects how well they have met the expectations, with greatest weight given to their most consistent and most recent work.

The final percentage grade is based on two parts. Seventy percent comes from work completed throughout the course, weighted toward more recent and more consistent achievement. The remaining thirty percent comes from a final evaluation near the end of the course — an examination, performance, essay, or other culminating task suited to the subject.

Grades are reported against the provincial standard, where Level 3 (70 to 79 percent) represents the standard expected of students at that grade. A grade of 50 percent or higher earns the credit.

Achievement is reported on the Ontario Provincial Report Card, which records the percentage grade and the credit earned for each course. Grades for completed credits carry forward onto the Ontario Student Transcript, the official record used for graduation and post-secondary admission.

The report card also reports six learning skills and work habits, separately from the academic grade: responsibility, organisation, independent work, collaboration, initiative, and self-regulation. These describe how a student approaches their learning, and universities and colleges do read them.

The Ontario curriculum asks every course to account for a set of cross-curricular considerations — the ways a subject connects to students’ broader development and to the world beyond the classroom. They shape how each course is planned and taught.

Courses are taught in small classes, which lets teachers adapt to how each student learns. A single lesson might combine direct instruction, discussion, independent practice, collaborative work, and hands-on or inquiry-based tasks, chosen to suit the material and the students in the room.

Students receive regular, specific feedback and can move at a pace that fits their goals, whether they are working ahead, recovering a credit, or balancing school with other commitments. The aim is that every student understands not just what they are learning, but why it matters and where it leads.