Social Studies 10F‎ > ‎In the World‎ > ‎

Building Vimy Ridge

Today we're looking at the Battle of Vimy Ridge. In order to think about this battle we need to understand the geography a little bit.

Your job, starting today, is to build Vimy Ridge. Working in groups of 5 or 6, we will build that in Minecraft. To do that, you first need to do some research. Several helpful sources are listed below.

Each group will position one of the four Canadian divisions. You'll try to discover a few things before you start building the ridge.
  1. How high is the ridge above the surrounding area?
  2. How long is the ridge?
  3. What were the likely paths the Canadians took to climb the ridge?
  4. What would be the best place to attack?
  5. Where did the Canadians start from?
  6. Where were the German defences located?
  7. What were the tactics used by the Canadians to try and take the Ridge?
  8. What were the tactics used by the Germans to try and defend?

Building

  1. Give yourself a scale. If one Minecraft person is six feet tall, how many blocks tall is the Ridge?
    • What is the layout of the Ridge? What are routes up from the bottom to the top?
  2. How many person/soldiers does one minecraft person represent? 
  3. Where do the Canadian troops start from?
  4. Where is the British artillery placed?
  5. Where are the German defences?

Things to Create

  1. Vimy Ridge
    • Height
    • Length
    • Location
  2. Artillery
    • Position
    • Amount
  3. Uniforms
    • British
    • Canadian
    • French
  4. Position of troops
    • How many troops does one Minecraft figure represent?

Vocabulary

  1. Enfilade
  2. Barrage

What are we trying to discover? What do we want to remember?

It's great to talk about Vimy Ridge, but what do we want to remember about it? What can looking at the physical layout tell us?
  1. Why did others fail to capture the Ridge?
  2. Why did the Canadians succeed in their attack?
  3. Was Canadian success inevitable, or was there a point where the attack might have failed?

Evaluation

     Yes More or Less  No 
 The Ridge  The group has a reasonable model of Vimy Ridge      
 The group can clearly explain the relevant details of their model.      
 The group can explain the choices and compromises that went into making       
 The Ideas  The team can explain why other nations failed to capture the Ridge      
 The team can explain why the Canadians succeeded.      
 The team can defend a position on whether Canadian success was inevitable.      

ĉ
Building Vimy Ridge.docx
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jdykstra@lindenchristian.org,
May 10, 2019, 10:29 AM
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