UBD Goals & Understandings
Understanding By Design
This section states the goals, understandings and essential questions that drive this unit.
Enduring Understandings
The key understandings that are the focus for this unit:
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Advancements originate from a strong need
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Advancements lead to different experiences for different people
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Resources in nature, through trade and geography are very influential in innovation
Essential Questions
The key questions aligned with students understandings:
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Why do people invent?
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Did Industrialization make life better for everyone?
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How do people, laws and technology shape a nation?
GOALS - NYS STANDARDS
4.6 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND INDUSTRIALIZATION:
Economic activities in New York State are varied and have changed over time, with improvements in transportation and technology. (Standards: 1, 3, 4; Themes: MOV, TCC, GEO, ECO, TECH)
4.6b In order to connect the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean, the Erie Canal was built. Existing towns expanded and new towns grew along the canal. New York City became the busiest port in the country.
4.6c Improved technology such, as the steam engine and the telegraph made transportation and communication faster and easier. Later developments in transportation and communication technology had an effect on communities, the State, and the world.
4.6e Entrepreneurs and inventors associated with New York State have made important contributions to business and technology.
SOCIAL STUDIES PRACTICE FOCUS:
Chronological reasoning and causation:
Distinguish between long term and immediate cause and effects of a current event or an event in history.
Comparison and contextualization:
Identify multiple perspectives on a historical event.
Geographic reasoning:
Describe how human activities alter places and regions.
Economics and economic systems:
Explain how scarcity necessitates decision making; compare the costs and benefits of individual and economic decisions.
Rationale for Teaching The Industrial Revolution
The unit being taught focuses on the Industrial Revolution, which is part of the fourth-grade Social Studies curriculum from the New York State Education Department. The investigation of this time in history is therefore a part of the common core standards for grade four as listed above.
In addition, the first and second Industrial Revolutions from 1773 – 1858 were important developments in the history of the United States and the world, and have changed the way human beings live their lives.
Also, just as important is the fact that we are currently in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and this is an important real life reason for students to understand industry, progress, resources and how all this ties in with different perspectives.
The unit it geared towards students being able to identify cause and effect for inventions, the disparity that free markets can cause between classes of people, explain and empathize with the perspectives of the different segments of society based on how they were affected by these inventions, and be able to compare and contrast the 1st and 2nd Industrial Revolutions to the current changes in American society owing to technological advances.
As mentioned in our conceptual framework, our learners bring diverse cultures, languages and backgrounds to their learning experience. Social Studies is a wonderful opportunity for them to bring their own perspectives as they analyze world events. It is important to engage them with their experiences and understandings of how events affect people so that they can become critical thinkers and learners. Learners who can set aside their misunderstandings as they gain perspective, understand power dynamics and come to the understanding that the world and communities are interconnected on multiple levels.
The biggest misunderstanding students might bring with them is explained by Delpit and Dowdy, "Little in the curriculum that appraises the students of their intellectual legacy – of the fact that people who look like them created much of the knowledge base of today’s world.”(p41). It is specifically the hope of this unit to allay misunderstandings that students might have that inventions and progress are restricted to adults, scientists or a certain class, income or race.
Delpit, L., & Dowdy, J. K. (2008). The skin that we speak thoughts on language and culture in the classroom. New York: The New Press.