Grade 8 · Social Studies · Unit 12 of 15
Sustainable Communities
Land use, the environment and the future
What your child practises
How settlements affect the environment, why land-use conflicts happen (including treaty rights and land claims), how natural hazards and rising seas affect cities, and what features a sustainable community of the future might have.
Ontario Curriculum expectation: Geography A1.2, A1.3, A2.5, A3.3, A3.5, A3.6 · environmental effects of settlement, land-use issues, risks such as rising sea levels, and practices that make communities more sustainable
Sample questions
A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.
Question 1
Does each practice help make a community more sustainable, or does it make it less sustainable?
Sort into: 🌱 More sustainable · 🏭 Less sustainable
- ☀️solar panels on roofs
- 🛣️wide highways for sprawl
- 🚌frequent public transit
- 🥕community gardens
- 🅿️draining wetlands for parking lots
- 🛢️dumping waste in rivers
- 🏗️building on the best farmland
- ♻️composting food scraps
Show answer
🌱 More sustainable: solar panels on roofs, frequent public transit, community gardens, composting food scraps · 🏭 Less sustainable: wide highways for sprawl, draining wetlands for parking lots, dumping waste in rivers, building on the best farmland
Hint: Sustainable practices save energy, reduce waste and protect land and water. Practices that waste resources or damage the environment are less sustainable.
Question 2
Land reclamation, such as the polders of the Netherlands, means…
- destroying a mountain
- protecting forests
- moving a city
- creating new land from the sea, lakes or wetlands
Show answer
creating new land from the sea, lakes or wetlands
Hint: Dikes and pumps keep the water out.
Question 3
Ontario's Greenbelt was created in 2005 to…
- build more highways
- protect only downtown Toronto
- close all farms
- protect farmland and natural areas around the Greater Golden Horseshoe from development
Show answer
protect farmland and natural areas around the Greater Golden Horseshoe from development
Hint: It limits sprawl in one of Canada's fastest-growing regions.
Question 4
Which action helps make a community more sustainable?
- leaving lights on
- burning garbage
- cutting down every tree
- using public transit
Show answer
using public transit
Hint: Transit lowers pollution and saves energy.
Question 5
Desertification is…
- a type of map
- fertile land becoming desert, which can threaten farming communities
- building a canal
- the creation of rainforest
Show answer
fertile land becoming desert, which can threaten farming communities
Hint: Drought, overgrazing and climate change can all contribute.
Question 6
Composting kitchen scraps helps by…
- reducing the amount of garbage sent to landfills
- making food last forever
- polluting rivers
- increasing waste
Show answer
reducing the amount of garbage sent to landfills
Hint: Compost can return nutrients to the soil.