The Canadian $10 bill has been given the Bank Note of the Year Award for 2018, by the International Bank Note Society (IBNS).
The bill, which features social justice icon Viola Desmond, is the first one in Canada to be vertical instead of horizontal. In other words, the images on the bill are to be viewed up-and-down rather than sideways.
The bill is made of polymer rather than paper.
It is the first Canadian bank note (bill) to feature a woman other than the Queen of England.
In a media release, the IBNS said Canada’s $10 bill was the front-runner right from the beginning of the voting. It was followed by Switzerland’s 200 Frank note, which shows a human hand, Norway’s 500 Kroner bill, which features a sailing ship, Russia’s 100 Ruble note, which depicts soccer, and the Solomon Islands’ 40 Dollar note featuring a man blowing a conch shell.
The IBNS said the bills have security features that make them very hard to duplicate. In other words, they prevent people from being able to just copy the bills, illegally, themselves. The bills are, however, easy for store owners and others to check to see if they are real.
Canada has won the Bank Notes of the Year Award in 2004, placed second in 2011, 2012 and 2013 and placed third last year.
The Canadian $10 bill beat out 14 other bills for the honour. (See Related Links, below.)
Related Links
Check out the other nominated bills here:
https://www.theibns.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=652%3Abanknote-of-2018-nominations&catid=38%3Abnoy-2018&Itemid=51
Teaching Kids News has written two stories about the $10 Viola Desmond bill:
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Kathleen Tilly
Writing/Discussion Prompt
Who was Viola Desmond? Read about her and retell what happened to her, and what she did, in your own words. What 5 characteristics would you use to describe her?
Reading Prompt:
Test yourself with the following challenge:
In your mind, pick three different bills from your country. Think of one of these bills and, without looking at the bill, write down a list of everything you can remember about it – the colour, the images, the security features etc. Do this for each of the three bills you chose.
Either find the real bills or look up the image of the bills online. Compare your list. What features did you remember? What did you forget?
Junior
Extend understanding of texts by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them (OME, Reading: 1.6).
Intermediate
Extend understanding of texts, including increasingly complex or difficult texts, by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them
(OME, Reading: 1.6).
Language Feature: Synonym
The words, bank note and bill, are different words but they basically mean the same thing. What other synonyms can you think of that relate to money?
