Some Attawapiskat residents will soon be moving into new “modular” homes.
Attawapiskat is a remote community in northern Ontario. Last year, the government there declared a state of emergency because residents were living in conditions that were very unsafe.
Canada’s government promised to help fix the housing problems in Attawapiskat.
The first modular home has reached the first nations community, and the second is on its way.
“Modular” in this case means that the home was built away from the community and transported there by truck.
There will be 22 modular homes added to the community.
The homes were shipped to Moosonee, Ont. in December, but had to stay there while the roads going further north froze, so they could be travelled by the heavy trucks.
Many northern communities in Canada and other countries depend on “ice roads,” which are unusable–or not even there–during the summer months but which freeze over and become useable during the winter. Many ice roads go over frozen waterways like lakes.
Some of the sites where the homes are to be placed in Attawapiskat are not yet ready. More construction still needs to be done before the homes can be installed.
Related Links
Attawapiskat: Canada’s “Fourth-World” Community
From Our Homes To Theirs — Responding To Attawapiskat
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Kathleen Tilly
Writing/Discussion Prompt
Teaching Kids News has been closely following the situation in Attawapiskat. Read TKN’s previous stories, which you can find in the “Related Links” section in this article.
Do you think the modular homes that are being delivered to Attawapiskat will solve the problems faced by this first nations community? Why or why not?
Reading Prompt: Text Patterns
This article is written in short paragraphs. How does this organization help you to understand the text?
Primary
Recognize a few organizational patterns in texts of different texts, and explain how the patterns help readers understand the texts (OME, Reading: 2.2).
Junior
Identify a variety of organizational patterns in a range of texts and explain how they help readers understand the texts (OME, Reading: 2.2).
Intermediate
Analyse increasingly complex texts to identify organizational patterns used in them and explain how the patterns help communicate meaning (OME, Reading: 2.2).
Grammar Feature: Past, Present and Future Tenses
When we write verbs (action words), we write them in the past, present or future tense.
Identify all of the verbs in the article and decide if they are written in the past, present or future tense.
