The Great Peace is a great resource for teaching Social Studies or Native Studies - at the elementary or secondary level. It is visually stunning, with beautiful photographs and artwork, and it also offers a very complete picture of an important cultural group in Canadian history. From the technology point of view, the CD is very interesting and satisfyingly complex, but it is also very easy to navigate. The Great Peace CD-ROM map in the teacher's guide and the opening section of the CD itself give the teacher or student a very clear idea of what the CD contains and how to find each part. It is very easy for the user to move from one section to another or to escape at any time.

The information is very complete and is presented in varied and interesting ways through stories, short explanations, visual representations and interactive activities. An important feature of the CD is that the information is presented in three levels elementary, secondary and post-secondary. The post-secondary section includes an extensive bibliography and some essays. this kind of presentation makes the CD useful at various school levels but also allows the teacher in any classroom to set students up to do research at varying levels of complexity. The Glossary is also a very important feature.

Our teachers were especially impressed by the Great Peace Interactive Journey section because it offered so many study possibilities. They also liked the Values section and saw many possibilities for teaching activities. This CD is especially useful for our present Social Studies curriculum at the Grade 6 level where students study various First Nations groups, and at the S3 level where Canadian history students are asked to look at the development of such institutions as government and law.

The teacher's guide is also very complete and offers more information than any teacher will ever need. The activities are well-described and well thought-out. We did find that most of them were listening, viewing, speaking and writing and would suggest that you might add some more social studies-oriented activities concerning maps and time and that there might be music, art and dance or game activities suggested,

We have shown the CD to our computer support people who are, also very favourably impressed by it.

Reviewed by Linda McDowell, Social Studies consultant
Val Georges, Aboriginal Curriculum Support teacher (secondary)
Maureen Quinsey, Aboriginal Education consultant
Louise McQuade, Aboriginal Curriculum Support teacher (elementary)