All Aboard!
Transportation Then and Now
By Frankie
Introduction
The teacher asks students to think back on how it was for New Yorkers to travel from one place to another in the 1800s. What if you needed to get from New York City to Rochester? What would your transportation options be?” The teacher uses the “Transportation Web” to jot down what the students say. Teacher and students discuss each choice, ending with the teacher asking, “What about when it’s raining hard or wintertime? How could you travel then?” The teacher explains that this was a big issue for New Yorkers, and people all over the United States, and the answer to the problem involved steam.
Activity
Activity: Using the Transportation flipchart, the teacher will show a video on the steam engine’s role in the Industrial Revolution. The teacher reminds students of Fulton traveling on the Erie Canal on the Clermont, which was a steam powered boat. The teacher explains that the steam engine was used to power different things, and also led to steam engine railroads. From there, transportation in New York, the United States, and the world changed.
Activity 2: “Then and Now” - Using the forms of transportation we listed in Gliffy and the information we jotted down for each, students will work with a partner to create a Smore to show what the method of transportation was like in the past, and how it is today. In their Smore, they will have to include what some of the improvements were over time. All students will be given an instruction sheet with the information needed to complete the assignment.
Differentiation
Students will have “creative license” in this activity. While they have to have the required elements, they can decided the amount of text, images, videos, etc. they would like to use to show their learning. The assignment should reflect their learning styles.
Technology Skill and Integration Support Synopsis
The technology used for this lesson includes the use the interactive white board software, ActivInspire, to present the lesson. Gliffy was used to create the graphic organizer to show the methods of transportation. Computers will be used for gathering information and multimedia needed for the work. Students will use Google Docs to take their notes, using the “Class Notes” template, for the assignment and share it with their partner. Smore will be used as the tool to put everything together for their project. They will be able to use audio, video, images, and text to meet the criteria for the task. As they do their research, students will be using Read and Write for Google Chrome to help them with reading content on the webpages they visit.