Lesson Plan: A Timeline of the Asbestos Industry

Lesson Plan

Before Exploring

Have students brainstorm what they know about asbestos. Their information might include properties, uses, dangers, methods of mining, regions mined and any story or information they know about asbestos and the industry.

Outline the Opportunity

Have students browse the topic Asbestos: Magic Mineral or Deadly Dust? on the CBC Digital Archives website, to locate information about the mining, health, and economic aspects of the asbestos industry. As students browse, they should make notes about significant industry events.

Using their notes, students will create a timeline of detailing one aspect of the asbestos industry -- either mining, health, or economics. Students will place various relevant events along the timeline, then include relevant facts, visuals, and narrative information for each event.

Revisit and Reflect

Students display and describe their timelines. As a class, compare the timelines and how the information might differ if the main theme of the timeline was different. As a class, come to a general consensus about the effect of the asbestos industry on Canada's economy and health system.

Extension

Students can examine the reaction of industry, government, and society to the health effects of asbestos and compare it to society's reaction to other health-care scares, such as the SARS crisis. As a class, discuss whether society seems to be learning anything from each new health crisis it faces.