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Activity # 1
DO YOU RECOGNIZE ANY OF THESE ITEMS? HELP US ORGANIZE OUR MUSEUM: CHOOSE AN INDEX CARDS AND LET YOUR IMAGINATION RUN WILD

	The Common Plantain is a perennial “weed” that can be found almost everywhere on the Toronto Islands and in any un-groomed garden in the city. Among its properties, this plant is known for being “refrigerant, diuretic and somewhat astringent”. Source: Botanical, A Modern Herbal
	This bug is a Phyllophaga,  a large genus (more than 260 species) of New World scarab beetles in the subfamily Melolonthinae. Common names for this genus and many other related genera in the subfamily Melolonthinae are May beetles, June bugs, and June beetles.This little guy was found dead on our path to the northern shore of Olympic Island. Almost everybody identified him as a Junbug. According to the Urban dictionary, the Junebug is a “Little brown beetle famous for its incessant bumping into porch lights and houses on a late spring to summer evening. Often tries to sneak into houses, either by flying right in when the door is open, or by hitching a ride on somebody’s clothes like a little ninja.”
	The Taraxacum Officinale, also know as Dandelion, is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. The dandelion has a controversial reputation:  gardeners who love their lawn green have launched a war to eradicate this promiscuous plant. But kids like its yellow flowers and many have been fascinated by the gentle dance of its seeds when they are sent away in the wind. Its medicinal and culinary properties are well known by foodies and herbalists. The first mention of the Dandelion as a medicine is in the works of the Arabian physicians of the tenth and eleventh centuries, who speak of it as a sort of wild Endive, under the name of Taraxcacon. Its roots, flowers and leaves can be tossed in salads, turned into tinctures, gellies, infusions or powders. Source: A Modern Herbal

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Activity # 2
IMAGINE YOU WERE ASKED TO REDESIGN THE TORONTO SKYLINE.
WHERE WOULD YOU START? WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

	This woman was a tourist visiting Toronto for the first time. When we showed her how the city had developed in the past 200 years, she was surprised and impressed. All she had seen of  Toronto was a skyline in pictures and postcard, nothing much different from any other north american cities. Little had she realized that the fierce row of skyscrapers crowding the waterfront was a fairly recent addition…so recent to change the face of the city in one mere decade.