Lesson One Creator: Breanne Tozer Module: Mental Health Lesson Title: Introduction Lesson Grade: 10 Curriculum Outcomes:

Physical Education and Health: Differentiate between the benefits of active living and physical fitness development, based on the wellness continuum. Demonstrate cooperation and supportive behaviour in interactions with others. Visual Arts: Recognize that, and investigate how art as a human activity emerges from human needs, values, beliefs, ideas, and experiences. Use, with confidence, experiences from their personal, social, cultural, and physical environments as a basis for visual expression. Demonstrate an understanding of how individual and societal values affect our response to visual art Identify and discuss the source of ideas behind their own work and the work of others Student Objectives: 1) Students will be able to distinguish between mental health and mental illness. 2) Students will explore their personal mental health through art. 3) Students will evaluate the importance of discussing mental health. Materials: 1) Colored markers 2) Paints 3) Paper 4) Clay 5) Post-It Notes Activities: Activity #1 Goal Materials

Grouping : This is an individual activity. To have students explore their own state of mental health. 1) Colored markers 2) Paints 3) Paper 4) Clay

Time: 25 minutes

Description/ Procedure

To begin today's class students will be asked to represent their current mental state through writing, drawing or modeling. This is an activity that will only be shared with the class if students would like to and will not be collected or graded.

As a class we will discuss how we will create a safe place within our classroom to share and learn about mental health and illness. It is important that we create a safe place within our classroom prior to starting discussion of this module so that students feel they can share and express their feelings openly. Students will decide on the rules and provisions of our safe space classroom by considering what makes a safe place for them personally.

Activity #2

Grouping : This activity will being by students individually brainstorming and then turn into a full class discussion. To have students discover what mental health is. 1) Post-it Notes 2) Canadian Mental Health Association Website

Time: 10 minutes

Goal Materials Description/ Procedure

After students have depicted their own state of mental health, each student will be asked to brainstorm, individually, about what they think mental health is. Each student will be given large post-it notes and asked to put one idea on each post-it note. Students will then place their post-it notes on the board around the central theme of mental health. We will then have a full class discussion on what mental health is and arrange student's thoughts and ideas in a web. Throughout this discussion students will develop the web and build off of classmates ideas and understanding of what mental health is. Once students are satisfied with their web of mental health we will take a picture of it so we can refer back to what they initially thought mental health to be. ** Mental Health definition from the Canadian Mental Health Association** "Mental health means striking a balance in all aspects of your life: social, physical, spiritual, economic and mental. Reaching a balance is a learning process. At times, you may tip the balance too much in one direction and have to find your footing again. Your personal balance will be unique, and your challenge will be to stay mentally healthy by keeping that balance."

Activity #3 Goal Materials Description/ Procedure

Grouping : This activity is a whole class discussion. To identify the differences between mental health and mental illness. 1) Post-it notes 2) Canadian Mental Health Association Website

Time: 15 minutes

The class will then have a discussion on mental illness and the similarities and differences between mental health and mental illness. To provide students with a visual aspect to the discussion we will work with the ideas they presented in the mental health web, as well as welcome new ideas, by reorganizing and grouping their web. We will create two webs side by side, one being focused around mental health, the other being focused around mental illness, with the area in the middle being undefined or "grey". We will also take a picture of these webs to have as a reference point. After this discussion students will be asked to create metaphors to ensure that students understand the differences between mental health and mental illness.

Activity #4 Goal Materials Description/ Procedure

Grouping : This activity is a whole class discussion. To have students discuss the topic of mental health openly and freely. 1) Canadian Mental Health Association Website

Time: 10 minutes

Following our discussion of mental health and mental illness students will discuss the importance of openly discussing these topics. Attention will be drawn to the importance of this topic through important statistics such as how many people are affected by mental health and illness. Many of these statistics will be accessed through the Canadian Mental Health Association website. Research will be touched upon in this lesson through definitions and statistics but will be further explored in the following lessons.