Lesson Plan 3

Theme/ Title: Changes in Technology

Grade Level: 2nd Grade

Materials:
Photos of tools people used in the 1800s to transport water and goods
Two small kid swimming pools
Small plastic Dixie cups for each student
Water

Goal: To help students understand the growth in technology from the 1800s to the present.

Objective: The students will be able to verbalize the ways in which our technology today has helped make everyday tasks much simpler.

Procedure:

Introduction-(10 min)
Ask the class how hard or easy it is for them to do various tasks such as get a drink of water, make a piece of toast, open a jar, iron their clothes etc.
Show the class pictures of various items from the 1800s from the Winona Historical Society such as the items used for making pancakes, toasting bread, ironing clothes, scooping ice cream, transporting water and goods.
Ask the students if they can identify what each item is before telling them about the items.
Go over each item and explain what it was used for and discuss how we accomplish those tasks today in much easier ways
Ex- we have toasters, running water, electric irons etc.

Activity-(25 min)
Explain to the class that we are going to play a game that will help show how much work went into simple everyday tasks that come so easily to us today.
Bring the class outside or into a gym and go over the rules of the game:
Have two kid pools on either end of the gym or playground area.
Have one of the pools filled with water and explain that this is going to serve as our “well”.
Have the other pool empty and explain that this is going to serve as our “home”.
Explain to the class that we are going to pretend we are a family from the 1800s and in order to have water to drink or wash clothes or dishes with or cook with etc. we need to get water from our well and bring it home.
Provide each student with a cup and tell them that this is going to act as their bucket to carry the water with.
Line the class up in two lines next to the home, and have two students at a time walk to the well and fill up their cups, as soon as they have filled their cups the next two students in line can go. Each student will need to go fill up their cup at the well and bring it back and dump it into the home. Each student will get to do this twice.
Once all students have gone through this twice, have them line up by the teacher to go back to the classroom.

Conclusion- (10 min)
Once back in the room, show the picture again to the class of the device used back in the 1800s to haul water and goods
Explain that people would have this device over their shoulders and a bucket would be attached on either side filled with water or some other type of good that was being transported such as feed for animals.
Ask the students how they felt having to go through that much work just to get water to their “home”.
Remind students that we are use to having things come so easy to us today and that we should be thankful for the technology such as running water that makes our lives so much easier.

Assessments:
Supervise the activity to make sure that students are following rules and staying on track. Also allow each student to have a turn to share their thoughts and opinions on the activity.