THE CANADIAN ATLAS ONLINE
www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas
ONTARIO – GRADE 9
The St. Lawrence River
Lesson Overview
Introduction to the St. Lawrence River and the St. Lawrence River Beluga Whales
Grade Level
Secondary School Grade 9
Time Required
One 75 minute period
Curriculum Connection
The Ontario Curriculum Grades 9 and 10 Canadian and World Studies – Geography of
Canada.
Canadian National Geography Standards
Essential Element # 1 (Grade 9-12) – The World in Spatial Terms
 Map, globe, and atlas use
Essential Element # 2 (Grade 9-12) – Places and Regions
 Physical and human processes shape places and regions
 Changes in places and regions over time
 Critical issues and problems of places and regions
Essential Element # 3 (Grade 9-12) – Physical Systems
 Global ocean and atmospheric systems
 World patterns of biodiversity
Essential Element # 5 (Grade 9-12) – Environment and Society
 Use and sustainability of resources
 Environmental issues (e.g. loss of biodiversity, water pollution)
Main Objective
Using the Canadian Atlas Online, introduce students to the features of the St. Lawrence
River and in particular the St. Lawrence River Beluga whale population.
Principal Resources
 The Canadian Atlas Online website at www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas
 The Saint-Lawrence Beluga Whale (part of The Canadian Biodiversity Project of McGill
University) at http://biology.mcgill.ca/undergra/c465a/biodiver/2000/belugawhale/beluga-whale.htm
 Student Worksheets 1 and 2 (attached)
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THE CANADIAN ATLAS ONLINE
www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas
ONTARIO – GRADE 9
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
 Use different types of maps (e.g. road, topographical, thematic) to interpret geographic
relationships, including changes over time in a specific location
 explain how human activities (e.g. agricultural and urban development, waste
management, parks development, forest harvesting, land reclamation) affect, or are
affected by, the environment
 identify the role of government in managing resources and protecting the environment
 assess how the effects of urban growth (e.g. development on former farm lands,
destruction of wildlife habitats, draining of marshes) alter the natural environment
 present findings from research on ways of improving the balance between human and
natural systems (e.g. recycling, river clean-ups, ecological restoration of local woodlots
or schoolyards, industrial initiatives to reduce pollution)
 explain how selected factors cause change in human and natural systems (e.g.
technological developments, corporate and government policies, zoning by-laws, natural
hazards, global warming)
 gather geographic information from primary sources (e.g. field research, surveys,
interviews) and secondary sources (e.g. reference books, mainstream and alternative
media, CD-ROMs, the Internet) to research a geographic issue
Lesson
Teacher Activity
Student Activity
Introduction
 Ask students to name a local river or one in
Canada. What do they know about the river?
Why are rivers important?
 Respond to teacher’s questions about rivers.
Lesson
Development
 Direct students to the Canadian Atlas Online
to research details about the St. Lawrence.
 They will use the Cloze Procedure, a
technique in which words are deleted from a
passage. The passage on Student
Worksheet #1 is presented to students, who
insert the correct words or terms to
complete and construct meaning from the
text.
 Fill in the missing information on Student
Worksheet #1 by accessing the Canadian
Atlas Online at
www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas/intro.aspx
?lang=En then click on > Explore by
themes > The land > Rivers of Canada >
On the next page (use this tool to navigate
to the St. Lawrence River web page)
 Provide students with the second worksheet
and briefly explain that they will be using
two websites to learn about Beluga whales
living in the St. Lawrence, their distribution
and status.
 The second worksheet focuses on the St.
Lawrence River Beluga whale population.
Use these two websites:
 Students will work at different paces so be
prepared to interrupt the Cloze Procedure to
provide guidance for the second student
worksheet
- Canadian Atlas Online (same as above)
- The Saint-Lawrence Beluga Whale (part of
The Canadian Biodiversity Project of
McGill University) at
http://biology.mcgill.ca/undergra/c465a/
biodiver/2000/beluga-whale/belugawhale.htm
 Map the features along the St. Lawrence
River and the current distribution of the
Beluga whale population.
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THE CANADIAN ATLAS ONLINE
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ONTARIO – GRADE 9
Lesson (cont’d)
Teacher Activity
Student Activity
Lesson
Development
 Create a line graph showing changes in the
Beluga population since 1977.
(cont’d)
 Identify the issues of pollution, disease,
human disturbances that harm them and
actions taken to preserve and protect them.
Conclusion
 Discuss the status of the Beluga population
with students. Note that our individual
environmental decisions can have significant
impacts on them or on other threatened or
endangered species.
 Students contribute to the class discussion.
Lesson Extension
Students can investigate the distribution and status of other threatened or endangered
species in Canada. Polar bears, for instance, provide a convenient tie-in with the issue of
global warming.
Assessment of Student Learning
 The teacher may collect one or both of the worksheets.
 The information may be included on a unit test.
Further Reading
 Underwater World – Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada
www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/zone/underwater_sous-marin/Beluga/Beluga_e.htm

Saint Lawrence River Belugas Program (Université de Montréal Faculté de médecine
vétérinaire)
www.medvet.umontreal.ca/pathologie_microbiologie/Beluga/anglais/default_ang.asp

Discover science and conservation – Whales at risk – The St. Lawrence Beluga
www.baleinesendirect.com/eng/FSC.html?sct=2&pag=2-6-1.html
 Hinterland’s Who’s Who – Mammal Fact Sheet – Beluga Whale
www.hww.ca/hww2.asp?id=381
 The State of Canada’s Environment 1996
www.ec.gc.ca/soer-ree/English/SOER/1996Report/Doc/1-6-6-5-6-4-1.cfm
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THE CANADIAN ATLAS ONLINE
www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas
ONTARIO – GRADE 9
Student Worksheet 1: St. Lawrence River
Background Information
Use the Canadian Atlas Online to fill in the blanks on the worksheet below. Visit
http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas/intro.aspx?lang=En and click on > Explore by themes >
The land > Rivers of Canada > On the next page (use this tool to navigate to the St. Lawrence
River web page)
Activity
 Source of the St. Lawrence is Lake
 Mouth:
(A gulf is an arm of a sea or ocean partly enclosed by land; yet larger
than a bay)
 Direction of flow:
 Length:
kilometres to the head of St. Louis River, Minnesota, USA
 Origin of name: on St. Lawrence’s Day in 1535, explorer
gave the Saint’s name to
a bay at the river’s mouth; in the early 1600s, it was adopted for the entire river. The Mohawk name is
Kaniatarowanenneh, meaning “
”
 Fed by Lake Ontario, Canada’s “great river” drains about
The St. Lawrence is framed by the
million square kilometers.
Highlands to the north and the
Mountains to the south. It starts out as a freshwater waterway from just east of
, Ont., and forms the border with the United States to Cornwall, Ont. It then broadens into a number of lakes
on its way to Montréal.
 From Trois-Rivières to Québec, the freshwater flow is
riverbed drops dramatically at the mouth of the
with cold Arctic
with the tides. The
River, where fresh water mixes
water. At its estuary, the St. Lawrence doubles in width to more than
kilometres before emptying in the Gulf of St. Lawrence An estuary is the wide part of a
river where it nears the sea; fresh and salt water mix.
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THE CANADIAN ATLAS ONLINE
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ONTARIO – GRADE 9
Student Worksheet 1 (cont’d)
River life
In an awesome avian spectacle: every spring and fall, more than
greater snow
geese stage in the tidal marsh of the Cap Tourmente National Wildlife Area, on the north shore of the
St. Lawrence River. The geese build up their
prime breeding grounds on
for the 3,000-kilometre trip to their
and Bylot islands or for the 900-kilometre journey
back to their wintering grounds along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Once they’re done
feeding on the roots of
during the fall migration, the tidal marsh at Cap
Tourmente is stripped bare. Jacques Cartier,
and Jesuit priests all wrote
about the great flocks at Cap Tourmente in accounts of their travels. At the beginning of the
century, the greater snow geese were near extinction. Today, their numbers
stand at more than
, due in part to the establishment of wildlife
and
restrictions on hunting.
Cultural legacy
The St. Lawrence is at the heart of most major developments in early Canadian history. When
first explored the river in 1535,
communities at Stadacona (Québec City) and
were already settled in
(Montréal). It was known as
until the early 1600s. As the main route into the interior of the continent, the
St. Lawrence was used by French explorers and traders to establish a colonial
. By the
mid-18th century, most of the land along the river between Montréal and Québec was divided into the
long, narrow farms of the
system. The mighty river served as a route for
commerce, starting with the
and later with
. With the
completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway — a system of locks, canals and channels linking the Great
Lakes and the St. Lawrence River with the Atlantic Ocean — in
, the river
became one of the most important transportation and industrial corridors in the world.
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ONTARIO – GRADE 9
Student Worksheet 1 (cont’d)
Current state
For centuries, the St. Lawrence River has been intensively developed. By the second half of the 20th
century, its banks were largely
heavily
between Montréal and Québec and its waters
. In 1970, the Canadian government conducted its first water-quality
study of the St. Lawrence.
efforts to protect the waterway have only been
introduced in the last
municipal
years. Some of the main sources of pollution include
and industrial
.
A recent report by the St. Lawrence Action Plan, a Canada-Quebec initiative, indicates that the river is
now
than it was during the second half of the 20th century. The level of
contamination has decreased and some animal populations, such as the
northern
, which was on the verge of disappearing in the 1960s, have
recovered. In some areas, the water is safe enough for
and freshwater fish
are generally fit to eat. But contaminants trapped in
still present a threat to
the St. Lawrence. The
population is still endangered, though its population
has stabilized in recent years. And the river’s
continues to be affected by
habitat loss and other human disturbances, as well as the invasion of foreign species.
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THE CANADIAN ATLAS ONLINE
www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas
ONTARIO – GRADE 9
Student Worksheet 2:
Distribution and Status Of The St. Lawrence River
Population Of Beluga Whales
Use the Canadian Atlas Online and The Canadian Biodiversity Project website to complete this exercise

Canadian Atlas Online:
> Explore the maps
http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas/intro.aspx?lang=En Click on

The Canadian Biodiversity Project (The Saint-Lawrence Beluga Whale):
http://biology.mcgill.ca/undergra/c465a/biodiver/2000/beluga-whale/beluga-whale.htm#map
1. Use the Canadian Atlas Online to plot these locations of the attached map.
Provinces
Population Centres
Water Bodies
Islands
Quebec
Quebec City
Chaleur Bay (Baie des
Chaleurs)
Anticosti
New Brunswick
Natashquan
Gulf of St. Lawrence
Cape Breton
Nova Scotia
Sept-Iles
Saguenay River
Newfoundland and
Labrador
2. Use The Saint-Lawrence Beluga Whale website to shade in the estimated present range of the
Belugas (see attached). Add an appropriate title to the map.
3. Use the Corrected Estimate Table 1 from The Saint-Lawrence Beluga Whale website to draw a line
graph showing the change in the Beluga population since 1977.
4. How do the numbers in Table 1 of the site compare to the numbers at the beginning of the 20 th
century according to The Saint-Lawrence Beluga Whale website?
5. What changed in 1979 to allow the population to rise?
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THE CANADIAN ATLAS ONLINE
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ONTARIO – GRADE 9
6. Why do the Belugas have higher concentrations of contaminants than do other aquatic mammals in
the area?
7. What diseases have been discovered in the carcasses?
8. In what other ways have humans disturbed the Belugas?
9. List three actions that have been taken to protect this population.
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