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TAH
Project Proposal
Submitted by
Erick Potter
Jasper-Troupsburg High School
Purpose and Objective: The
purpose and objective for this project is to have the students
demonstrate the ability to identify the route of the Lewis and Clark
Expedition and explain at least three impacts of the journey on the
history of the United States and Native American cultures.
Stakeholders: This project is
intended for juniors and seniors who are either enrolled in a
Regents U.S. History and Government course or an ACE U.S. History
course.
U.S. History Content Area: This
project deals with the early history of the United States and the
period of exploration and discovery around the turn of the 19th
century. This project will align to the New York State Learning
Standards for social studies; specifically it will correlate with
the standards pertaining to the history of the United States and New
York and geography.
Outline Describing Content:
-
To introduce this lesson, students will
complete a web quest where they will identify the principal
people associated with the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the
Corps of Discovery. Once these people have been identified,
students will have to create a tree diagram with pictures (if
available) showing the relationship between the participants.
Examples of people I will be looking for are as follows (this is
not an all inclusive list): President Thomas Jefferson,
Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, York (Clark’s slave), and
Sacajawea.
-
While working in small groups (2 or 3)
students will look at traditional maps showing the route of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition and then use Google Earth to map the
route themselves by placing push pins on the electronic maps to
create a virtual tour of the actual route. Students will
include at least twenty push pins in the Google Earth map. The
location of most points will be determined by the student based
on their study of traditional maps. However, there will be some
points that are mandatory: the starting point in St. Louis,
Missouri, Fort Mandan, the Great Falls of the Missouri, and Fort
Clatsop.
-
Students will be encouraged to explore
selected journal entries from the Lewis and Clark Expedition and
use them to help determine points of interest or locations of
important events that transpired on the journey.
-
Students will present their Google Earth
“guided tour” to the class and discuss where along the route
they felt the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered the most
difficulty and their reasons for coming to this conclusion.
-
To conclude the activity, students will
write a two page essay in which they will identify at least
three impacts of the Lewis and Clark Expedition on the history
of the United States and Native American cultures.
Software to be used, Internet materials,
etc.: This lesson will require an Internet search engine for
the webquest (i.e. Google), Google Earth software, traditional
printed maps showing the route of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
from a textbook or other printed media, selected Lewis and Clark
Expedition journal excerpts, and ActivStudio software for the final
presentation on an Activboard.
Level of Student Involvement:
Students will be heavily involved in the research, setup, and
presentation of this project. The instructor will serve as an
advisor and guide while the students engage in discovery learning
throughout the course of the project.
Evaluation Process: Students
will be evaluated by the instructor on the following criteria:
Students will evaluate members of their group
on the following criteria:
Students will evaluate each group’s map
presentation on the following criteria:
-
Audibility of the speaker(s) and pacing of
the presentation
-
Accuracy of the information
-
Thoroughness of presentation
Timeline: This project should
take approximately 10 class days (40 minute class periods) depending
on the speed of the presentations. Student essays are to be turned
in on the last day of presentations. A rough breakdown of that time
schedule is as follows:
-
Web quest and tree diagram (2 days)
-
Google Earth map construction, examination
of traditional maps and selected journal entries (4 days)
-
Presentations and evaluations (4 days)
District Approvals: The only
approval needed to complete this project will be permission to
download the free version of Google Earth on to the laptops in our
mobile computer lab.
Journal for TAH
Project
Erick Potter
Jasper-Troupsburg High School
Day 1 and
2: Introduced students
to the project and allowed them to start the web quest. Many
students worked much quicker than anticipated on the web quest. It
seems like the websites they are finding and using are, for the most
part, good sites. Students are finding a lot of information and I
am pleased so far with the results. I am anxious to see how their
tree diagrams turn out.
Day 3 and
4: The tree diagram is
taking slightly longer to construct than I had anticipated.
Students are having difficulty getting pictures and labels properly
spaced in a Word document. Perhaps next time I will have them use a
graphics program to make this diagram. Students began looking at
traditional maps and journal entries from the Lewis & Clark
Expedition. They will use the information they find here in order
to determine what points of interest they want to highlight on their
Google Earth map.
Day 5:
Students finished examining paper maps of the Lewis & Clark route.
Many have started construction of their electronic map on Google
Earth . Looking at the list of places that students are featuring
on their electronic maps, it appears that they have a good grasp of
the Expedition’s journey. It is interesting to see what locations
and events the students choose to include on the maps they are
creating.
Day 6:
Students continued construction of their Google Earth maps. I am
pleased with the progress that is being made.
Day 7:
Students completed construction of their Google Earth maps. They
will be ready to start their presentations tomorrow.
Day 8 and
9: Students presented
and explained their Google Earth maps. The presentations and
student evaluations went a little faster than I expected. Overall,
the presentations were well done.
Day 10:
Students turned in their essays. A quick glance through them looks
promising. They should be interesting reading.
* Follow up:
Most student essays were very well done. I am pleased with the
results.
TAH Project
Reflective
Conclusion
Erick Potter
Jasper-Troupsburg High School
Since this was my first TAH project, I was not really
sure what to expect. I wanted to attempt something “outside of the
box” and I think that overall I was successful.
Perhaps the most successful part of this project was the
level of student engagement in every aspect of it. Students were
given general guidelines and then they were able to “take the ball
and run with it.” It was nice to see the students’ enthusiasm for a
project in which they had a lot of input and the ability to make
choices about the final product. I feel that they benefited from
this experience because they were able to take technology experience
that they already had and apply it to U.S. History. As a result,
they could take ownership of the knowledge about the Lewis and Clark
Expedition in a way that would simply not be possible in a
conventional instructional setting.
As I just mentioned, the students were enthusiastic about
this project and generally had positive comments regarding it. The
results were encouraging enough that I will make a concerted effort
to integrate more activities of this type into my curriculum.
Next year when I do this project again, I will make some
minor changes. The main change that I will implement next years
deals with the construction of the tree diagram outlining the major
people involved with the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It will be
completed in a graphics program as opposed to using Word. We found
that Word provides little flexibility with the placement of pictures
and that placing text labels underneath them was cumbersome. This
problem should be easily remedied using an actual graphics
application like Paint or Print Shop.
The major success of this project was getting students to
use technology in the learning process. Our school district is
upgrading its technology and in the past little has been done on a
daily basis to integrate it into the classroom. This is now
changing. This project was a step in the right direction. Not only
did the students actively get involved in the learning process but
they also used technology daily. I am sure that in the future
projects like this will be created by teachers in our district
because there is now an emphasis on doing so.
I only have one suggestion for those who wish to
implement this project in their classroom. The main thing I would
suggest is that you use a graphics program to construct your tree
diagram like I mentioned above. This will allow for far more
flexibility than using Microsoft Word like I did. I also think a
graphics program would produce a higher quality finished product.
Overall, I was very pleased with the outcome of this
project and I cannot wait to implement more like it into my
curriculum. I feel that it was beneficial for me and my students.
Potter TAH Project in
Word
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