Learning Materials

We offer many different learning materials designed to draw students into Canadian history, critical thinking and archival research.

The Franklin Expedition Website

The website introduces this history mystery and provides primary documents as well as images, maps, videos, and expert interpretations on the Franklin Mystery.

Mystery Quests

There are five MysteryQuests for the Franklin Mystery. Each mysteryquest is an interactive, user-friendly lesson designed for use by an individual or with a partner. Suggestions for adapting these resources for use by an entire class are found in the "Teacher Notes" attached to each MysteryQuest.

Teachers' Guides

We have created a teaching unit for senior secondary/undergraduate students. It is entitled Inuit & Explorers in the Search for Franklin: ‘Exhibiting’ Voices from the Past. The teachers' guide includes a wide range of teacher support, including background materials, activity sheets and detailed lesson plans. Some suggestions are relevant for college and university classes.

Umlagtalike: Inuit Knowledge and the Franklin Expedition is a teaching unit produced by the Department of Education, Government of Nunavut in collaboration with the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History project. Designed for grade 8 students in Nunavut; includes notes throughout the document about how to adapt the unit in other contexts (Inuktitut, English)

To access all of the teachers' guides for the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History, register here. When we send you your username and password, use that to login at the same page, and you will see the list of teachers' guides.

Videos for Educators

Finding Franklin: New Approaches to Teaching Canadian History, is a series of twelve videos related to The Franklin Mystery: Life and Death in the Arctic. These videos were developed for educators by The History Education Network, one of our partners.

Classroom Poster

We offer a free Franklin Mystery poster which is available online. The posters are available as PDF files and will require a PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader to be installed on your computer. Just download and print for your classroom on 11x17 inch paper (28 X 43 centimeters) or scale down to fit your printer paper!