Working Lives is an integrated, cross-curricular, multi-level resource package with materials focusing on the economic history of B.C. during the province’s first 100 years of growth and development. Ten traditional and original folk songs tell the personal stories of workers involved in the mining, forestry, fishing and transportation industries.

Contents of Working Lives
Each of the four sections of Working Lives features songs that bring a human perspective to economic studies. The songs describe from the workers' perspective the often difficult and dangerous conditions they experienced in resource industries. The working lives of hand trollers, gill net fishers, gold rush miners in the Cariboo, coal miners on Vancouver Island and hard rock miners in northwestern B.C., hand loggers, green chain workers, travellers on the Cariboo Road, labourers on the Canadian Pacific Railway, even a coastal ferryboat captain – all played a vital and hitherto unsung role in the province’s economic development.

Background information on the industry in question provides a context for each of the songs. Archival photographs, original drawings and a glossary of terms and idioms further aid comprehension. Learning activities provided in PDF files enable these understandings to be demonstrated. Finally, extension and research suggestions, supported by resource lists that include websites, encourage independent exploration.

Using Working Lives
Intended primarily as enrichment for elementary students and curriculum support for the Social Studies 10 course, Working Lives can also be integrated across the curriculum in Music, Science and Technology, Science, and English.

Working Lives is designed so that students will be able to complete the learning activities using only information contained in the package. Extension and research activities, however, will likely require soem of the books and videos listed in the bibliographies.

Higher-level thinking skills are built into both the learning and extension activities, many of which encourage students to respond imaginatively and creatively.

Teachers are urged to familiarize themselves with the contents of the package before determining their instructional strategies.

Ties with the Community
Working Lives content and activities provide effecive preparation for field studies to museums and local resource industries. Schools may also wish to invite people from the community into classrooms to share their personal stories from on-the-job experiences. Local union offices should be able to provide contact information and suggest any additional resource materials.