Short overview

Students explore an informative text on the history of the mint.

Learning skills

• Language of instruction: French
  Skill 1: reading varied texts
  Acquiring and building on knowledge of language, texts and culture; referring to cultural markers of a language-based, literary and historic nature and acquiring new ones
• Social studies, history and citizenship education
  Skill 3: constructing citizenship awareness using history Identifying values and principles arising from social realities;
  examining the nature, origin and function of public institutions

Explanation of teaching purpose

– History of the Royal Canadian Mint
– General knowledge of the mint

Desired results

Helping students to increase their general knowledge of the mint’s history by reading an informative text and then answering comprehension questions

Context

The teacher shows students examples of old actual money or images of it (two dollar bill, fifty-cent piece, etc.) to raise their interest and elicit their questions.

Process

The students receive the Royal Canadian Mint Historical Timeline, which they will have to read in order to answer the appended questionnaire.

Enrichment

After the students [have done the reading and completed the questionnaire], the teacher leads a [short] group discussion on their acquired knowledge and the highlights of the mint’s history.

Delivery

Exercise may be done [as a group] or individually.

Required materials

– Royal Canadian Mint Historical Timeline: http://www.mint.ca/store/dyn/PDFs/RCM%20Historical%20Timeline.pdf
– Appendix: Student Questionnaire
– Appendix: Student Questionnaire Answer Key

Evaluation areas

French: comprehension of significant textual elements and use of appropriate reading strategies (C. 1)
* The teacher is free to adapt each section for his or her class and as the exercise proceeds.

Appendix: Student Questionnaire

Historical Timeline of the Royal Canadian Mint

1. On what date did Governor General Earl Grey have the Dominion’s first domestically produced coin struck?

2. Describe that first coin.

3. What was the second coin struck at the Ottawa branch of the Royal Mint at the opening ceremonies in 1908?

4. Why did Canada replace silver with nickel for the five-cent piece in 1922?

5. What event did the first silver dollar issued by the Royal Canadian Mint commemorate?

6. Name the Canadian emblems on the backs of the fifty-cent, twenty-five-cent, ten-cent, five-cent and one-cent coins.

7. What were the two fine silver medals the mint struck in 1949 in honour of Canadians’ gallant war service?

8. Who first appears on Canadian coins in 1953?

9. What are the four European nations represented on the coin recalling the Confederation conference centennial?

10. Who was the artist who created the design on the back of the 100-dollar gold coin celebrating the adoption of “O Canada” as the country’s national anthem?

11. What shape is the loonie?

12. In what year did the toonie, which lasts about 20 times longer, replace the two-dollar bill?

13. Which two metals are used in the toonie?
Outer ring: _____________________________
Inner core: _____________________________

14. What did they decide to strike to mark the end of the second millennium?

15. What is on the first colourized twenty-five-cent collection coin?

16. To whom is the the world’s first coloured circulation coin dedicated (it commemorates the red poppy, Canada’s flower of remembrance)?

17. Which coin holds the record for the largest gold coin in the world?

18. For which Olympic Games did the mint strike the athletes’ medals?

19. When [did] the mint become 100 years old?

20. Of all the collection coins the Royal Canadian Mint has issued, which ones would you most like to collect and why?
– Commemorative silver dollar recalling the centenary of the Caribou Gold Rush (1958)
– 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police twenty-five-cent coin or silver dollar (1973)
– 21st Olympiad coins (1976)
– 100-dollar gold “O Canada” coin (1981)
– Calgary Winter Olympic Games commemorative coin (1988)
– Coins for the millennium (1999)
– First colourized collection coin (2000)
– Red poppy coin (2004)
– Terry Fox coin (2005)
– Saskatchewan and Alberta centennial coins (2005
– Square beaver coin (2006)
– Breast cancer coin (2006)
– Vancouver Olympic Winter Games coin (2007)

Appendix: Student Questionnaire

Answer Key

1. January 2, 1908
2. Silver fifty-cent piece bearing the effigy of His Majesty King Edward VII
3.The large one-cent piece
4. Less expensive/nickel is an excellent metal for coinage/Canada is the world’s leading source of nickel ore
5. The silver jubilee of His Majesty King George V
6. The Coat of Arms, the caribou, the Bluenose fishing schooner, the beaver and the maple leaf
7. The Defence of Britain Medal and the War Medal 1939-1945
8. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
9. France, Ireland, Scotland and England
10. Roger Savage
11. Eleven-sided
12. 1996
13. Outer ring: nickel
Inner core: aluminum bronze
14. A different twenty-five-cent coin for each month of 1999 and 2000
15. Canadian flag with its red maple leaf and side panels
16. The coin is dedicated to all of the 117,000 gallant Canadians who gave their lives while in the nation’s service
17. The one-million-dollar coin
18. 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games
19. 2008
20. Various responses