Thomas, P. (2008). Farmer George plants a nation. Paintings by Layne Johnson. Honesdale, PA:  Calkins Creek.

Artwork:  Realistic oil paintings

 

ISBN-13: 978-1-59078-460-0

 

 

While popularly known as a politician and a military man, Washington’s roots were in farming, and his techniques and inventions were truly significant agricultural achievements.  Illustrated with detailed paintings, and interspersed with quotations from Washington’s letters and diaries, the text presents a unique perspective that adds new dimension to history lessons.

 

Curricular connection: Early American history/ Grade 5 History-Social Science/ Grade 11 History-Social Science

Subjects:  Farming; Inventions; Beginning of our nation

 

Theme:  The Father of Our Country was an even more complex and influential man than most people realize.

 

Category: Non-fiction 973.4

 

Age Level Recommendation: Upper Elementary

 

Rating: 5Q/2P

AAS 5-3-08

 

 

 

Lesson Plan—Inventions (AAS 5-4-08)

 

 

 

Objective: Encourage and practice higher-order thinking skills – analyze relationships between historical context and the resulting inventions and their impact on society.

 

 

 

Additional objectives can be added based on grade-appropriate standards.

 

 

 

Grade Range:  5^th-8^th (but adaptable to higher grades)

 

 

 

Standards:  Applicable/adaptable to a variety of History-Social Science, Language Arts, and Science Content Standards depending on the grade level of the students; see suggestions.

 

History-Social Science Content Standards -- California

 

Grade 5 HSS 5.2.1 Describe the entrepreneurial characteristics of early explorers (e.g., Christopher Columbus, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado) and the technological developments that made sea exploration by latitude and longitude possible (e.g., compass, sextant, astrolabe, seaworthy ships, chronometers, gunpowder).

 

Grade 5 HSS 5.5.4 Describe the views, lives, and impact of key individuals during this period (e.g., King George III, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams).

 

Grade 6 HSS 6.1.1 Describe the hunter-gatherer societies, including the development of tools and the use of fire.

 

Grade 6 HSS 6.4.8 Describe the enduring contributions of important Greek figures in the arts and sciences (e.g., Hypatia, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Thucydides).

 

Grade 7 HSS 7.2.5 Describe the growth of cities and the establishment of trade routes among Asia, Africa, and Europe, the products and inventions that traveled along these routes (e.g., spices, textiles, paper, steel, new crops), and the role of merchants in Arab society.

 

Grade 7 HSS 7.3.5 Trace the historic influence of such discoveries as tea, the manufacture of paper, wood-block printing, the compass, and gunpowder.

 

Grade 8 HSS 8.12.9 Name the significant inventors and their inventions and identify how they improved the quality of life (e.g., Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Orville and Wilbur Wright).

 

English-Language Arts Content Standards -- California

 

Grade 5 ELA 2.4 Draw inferences, conclusions, or generalizations about text and support them with textual evidence and prior knowledge.

 

Grade 7 ELA 2.3 Analyze text that uses the cause-and-effect organizational pattern.

 

Grade 8 ELA 2.1 Deliver narrative presentations (e.g., biographical, autobiographical):

 

Science Content Standards – California

 

Grade 5 Science 6f. Select appropriate tools (e.g., thermometers, meter sticks, balances, and graduated cylinders) and make quantitative observations.

 

Grade 6 Science 7b./Grade 7 7a. Select and use appropriate tools and technology (including calculators, computers, balances, spring scales, microscopes, and binoculars) to perform tests, collect data, and display data.

 

Grade 8 Science 1e. Students know scientists have developed instruments that can create discrete images of atoms and molecules that show that the atoms and molecules often occur in well-ordered arrays.

 

 

 

Picture Book Resources:

 

 

 

Now & Ben:  The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin by Gene Barretta

 

So You Want to Be an Inventor? by Judith St. George

 

Marvelous Mattie:  How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor by Emily Arnold McCully

 

Farmer George Plants a Nation by Peggy Thomas

 

Girls Think of Everything:  Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women by Catherine Thimmesh

 

Hooray for Inventors! by Marcia Williams

 

Queen of Inventions:  How the Sewing Machine Changed the World by Laurie M. Carlson

 

 

 

Web Resources:

 

 

 

About.com Inventors and Inventions-- http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/a/FamousInvention.htm

 

Innovation Timeline -- http://www.ideafinder.com/history/timeline.htm

 

Inventors and Inventions -- http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/web/inventor.html

 

Inventors and Inventions for K-12 Education -- http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/inventors.htm

 

Inventors and Inventions Theme Page -- http://www.cln.org/themes/inventors.html

 

Inventors and Inventions --http://www.picadome.fcps.net/lab/currl/inventors/default.htm

 

Innovation Lives:  Exploring the History of Women Inventors -- http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/ilives/womeninventors.html

 

American Inventors and Inventions -- http://www.150.si.edu/150trav/remember/amerinv.htm

 

The National Inventors Hall of Fame

 

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004638.html

 

or http://www.invent.org/index.asp

 

A Guide to Inventions and Discoveries:  From Adrenaline to Zipper

 

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004637.html

 

Greatest Inventions

 

http://library.thinkquest.org/C002942/inventions/index.shtml  

 

History Channel History of Toys -- http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=mini_home&mini_id=57124

 

About.com American History Timeline -- http://americanhistory.about.com/library/timelines/bltimelinesindex.htm

 

Smithsonian Institution American History Timeline -- http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmah/timeline.htm

 

Timeline Archive from InfoPlease –

 

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/timelinearchive.html

 

History, Geography, Social Studies, and Inventions

 

http://www.khake.com/page55.html

 

 

 

 

 

Year	Timeline of Events in History	Impact and/or Related Events (including inventions)
553	Silkworms smuggled out of China to Europe
1347-1351	Millions die in Europe of the “Black Death”
1492	Columbus is the first European to come to the Caribbean/Americas
Circa 1503	Leonardo daVinci paints the Mona Lisa
1543	Copernicus theorizes that the Earth revolves around the sun
1582	Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian calendar
1607	First English colony on American mainland, Jamestown, established
1610	Galileo sees the moons of Jupiter through his telescope
1619	The first African slaves arrive in North America
1620	The Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock
1664	Sir Isaac Newton experiments with gravity
1704	The first newspaper in America published
1732	Benjamin Franklin begins publishing Poor Richard’s Almanack
1740	Capt. Vitus Bering discovers Alaska
1752	Benjamin Franklin conducts his famous kite and key experiment to prove that lightning is electricity
1755	U. S. Postal Service established
1773	The Boston Tea Party
1775	The American Revolution begins
1778	Capt. James Cook discovers Hawaii
1778	Franz Mesmer uses hypnotism
1796	Edward Jenner introduces smallpox vaccination
1800	Alessandro Volta produces electricity
1807	Robert Fulton makes first successful steamboat trip
1842	Crawford Long uses ether as the first anesthetic
1846	Failure of potato crop causes famine in Ireland
1849	Gold Rush in California
1858	Delivery of mail from East to West by stagecoach begins
1858	First trans-Atlantic telegraph cable completed
1859	Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species
1863	Free mail delivery in cities sanctioned by U. S. Congress
1865	U. S. Civil War ends
1865	Gregor Mendel’s Law of Heredity
1867	U. S. purchases the Alaska Territory
1868	14th Amendment gives civil rights to blacks
1869	Construction completed on first transcontinental rail route
1869	Mendeleev’s periodic table of elements
1878	First commercial telephone conversation
1880	U. S. restricts immigration of Chinese labor
1882	Robert Koch announces discovery of tuberculosis germ
1883	The U. S. and Canada standardize time zones to support railroad schedules
1885	World’s first skyscraper built in Chicago
1886	The Statue of Liberty is available to the public
1888	Historic blizzard in northeastern U. S.
1890	U. S. Census took one year to tabulate
1895	Roentgen discovers x-rays
1898	Marie and Pierre Curie discover uranium
1901	Theodore Roosevelt sworn in as President of the United States
1903	The Wright Brothers make first successful airplane flight
1904	New York City subway opens
1905	The first “moving pictures” open to the public at a “nickelodeon”
1906	San Francisco earthquake
1908	Model T produced by the Ford Motor Company
1911	Ernest Rutherford discovers the structure of the atom
1911	Aircraft used as weapons in Turkish-Italian War
1912	The Titanic sinks
1913	16th Amendment authorizes income tax
1920	Prohibition
1920	Women granted the right to vote by the 19th Amendment
1926	Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket
1927	Aviator Lindbergh flies nonstop from NYC to Paris, France
1929	U. S. stock market collapse
1930	Pluto discovered
1932	Aviator Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean
1933	Hitler appointed German chancellor
1940	First official network television broadcast (NBC)
1941	The Japanese attack Pearl Harbor—the Americans enter WWII
1941	Atomic bomb research begins (Manhattan project)
1945	U. S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
1945	WWII ends
1947	Jackie Robinson breaks the color barrier in major league baseball as the first African-American player
1953	Discovery of the molecular model of DNA by Watson and Crick
1953	Hillary and Norgay climb to summit of Mt. Everest
1954	Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka bans racial segregation in public schools
1954	Salk begins inoculating children against polio
1955	Disneyland opens in Anaheim, CA
1955	The first McDonalds restaurant opens
1955	Rosa Parks refuses to sit at the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama
1957	Sputnik I and Sputnik II are launched into space by the Russians, officially opening the Space Age and the Space Race
1959	Tibet’s Dalai Lama escapes to India
1959	Alaska and Hawaii become states
1959	The Leakeys discover hominid fossils
1961	First man in orbit around Earth, Yuri Gagarin
1967	Thurgood Marshall becomes lst black U.S.Supreme Court justice
1967	First SWAT unit formed (LAPD)
1969	Astronaut Neil Armstrong walks on the moon
1969	Sesame Street debuts on television
1970	The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is founded
1970’s to 1990’s	Audiocassettes most popular format for pre-recorded music
1981	IBM develops the first personal computer
1981	The Columbia, the first U. S. space shuttle, is launched
1984	The user-friendly Macintosh computer (complete with a mouse) is launched
1988	Colin Pitchfork convicted of murder based on DNA evidence at the scene of the crime
1989	Correspondence by e-mail begins popularity
1990	Worldwide Web debuts, popularizing the Internet
1991	The first Gulf War begins
2003	The second Gulf War begins
2008	First LAPD SWAT member dies in the line of duty
2008	First woman accepted into LAPD SWAT training

 

 

 

 

 

 

Invention Year/Inventor	Invention	Impact and/or related Historical Event
Circa 100 A.D. The Chinese	Paper
644 The Persians	Windmill
1450’s Johann Gutenberg	Printing with movable type
1590 Zacharias Janssen	Microscope
Circa 1592 Galileo	Thermometer
1608 Johannes Lipperhey	Telescope
1656 Christiaan Huygens	Pendulum clock
1668 Sir Isaac Newton	Reflecting telescope
1765 James Watt	Steam engine
1785 Jean Pierre Blanchard	Parachute
1793 Eli Whitney	Cotton gin
1805 Oliver Evans	Refrigerator
1814 George Stephenson	lst practical steam locomotive
1821 Michael Faraday	Electric motor
1824 Louis Braille	Braille writing
1829 Austin Burt	Typewriter
1834 Charles Babbage	“analytical engine” – precursor to computer
1837 Samuel Morse	Telegraph (patented 1844)
1838 Samuel Morse	Morse code
1846 Elias Howe	Sewing machine
1849 Walter Hunt	Safety pin
1853 Levi Strauss	Blue jeans
1855 Bessemer	Bessemer converter (early blast furnace for cheaper production of steel)
1866 Alfred Nobel	Dynamite
Circa 1870 Thomas Adams	Chewing gum
1873 Joseph Glidden	Barbed wire
1876 Alexander Graham Bell	Telephone
1877 Thomas Edison	Phonograph
1879 Thomas Edison	Lightbulb
1880’s Herman Hollerith	Punch-card tabulation machine
1888 George Eastman	Hand-held Kodak camera
1893 Whitcomb L. Judson	Zipper
1896 Guglielmo Marconi	Radio
1902 Morris Michtom	Teddy bear
1903 Wright Brothers	Airplane
1913 Henry Ford	Manufacturing assembly line
1920’s Clarence Birdseye	Quick freeze machine
1920 William Potts	Traffic light
1921 Earle Dickson	Bandaid
1927 Philo T. Farnsworth	Television
1928 Alexander Fleming	Penicillin
1929 Herman Affel & Espenschied	Coaxial cable
1933 Richard Hollingshead	Drive-in movie theater
1936 George Nissen	Trampoline
1937 Walt Disney	Multiplane camera
1942 Harry Coover	Superglue
1943 Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan	Scuba gear
1945 J. Robert Oppenheimer and team	Atomic bomb
1949 Kirk Christiansen	LEGO
1945 Eckert and Mauchly	ENIAC (first electronic computer)
1955 Forest Bird	Medical respirator
1955 George de Mestral	Velcro
Early 1960’s	Skateboard
1960’s Ray Dolby	Dolby Noise Reduction
1963 U. S. Postal Service	Zip code
1965 Faria/Wright	AstroTurf
1968 Allen Breed	Automotive airbag
1968 Douglas Engelbart	Computer mouse
1969 James Fergason	Modern LCD (liquid crystal display)
1971 Ray Tomlinson	E-mail
1971 Ted Hoff	Microprocessor
1971 Stephanie Kwolek	Kevlar
1972 Nolan Bushnell	Video game “Pong”
1995 Philips and Sony Corporations	DVD-Digital Video Disc
2008 18-year-old inventor	The Uno – a unicycle motorcycle

 

 

 

 

Anticipatory Set:

 

 

 

“Have you ever heard the saying ‘Necessity is the mother of invention.’  What does that mean?” (Accept answers until correct one is offered.) “Need is just one of the many reasons people invent things.  Many inventions spring forth from an inspirational event or encounter. Some inventions happen by accident when the inventor is looking for or trying to create something else.  What are some inventions that you think have had a dramatic impact on the world?  Why? What are some inventions that you couldn’t live without?  Why?  What did people do before they had that invention that you so dearly love?”

 

 

 

“This week we will be learning all about how the things people have invented have had a far-reaching impact on our world and our lives.  Also, we will learn how events in history are often directly related to inventions.”

 

 

 

Teaching:

 

 

 

1.  Read aloud one or more of the picture books above to introduce several inventions.  Discuss these inventions and their relationship to the history that preceded them and that followed them.

 

 

 

2. From the invention list, give students a selection of 10-12  inventions/inventors (remove the dates and do not put the inventions in chronological order).  Put the matching invention years on the board.  “These are the years that match the inventions on your list.  Generally, the years given are when the invention was actually created, but occasionally the year may represent the year the invention was patented.  Look at the inventions, look at the years, get a feel for what clues you might be able to pick up on that would tell you how to match them up.  Did some of these inventions have to come before or after another invention on the list?”

 

 

 

3.  “Do any of these years mean anything to you?  Any historical events happen at the same time?  Put the years from the board in chronological order across the bottom of your list of inventions.”  Model thinking aloud the process of figuring out some clues to the sequence and match up of inventions.  Model taking notes of the clues.

 

 

 

Guided Practice:

 

 

 

4.  “So this task isn’t too hard, I am going to give you some extra clues.”  Hand out the Timeline of Events in History.  You may modify this list (add or subtract events) to match specific grade level content standards.  Use as much or as little of this list you wish.  Have the students work in pairs to continue to take notes about the inventions and their matching years and then produce a timeline of the inventions.

 

 

 

5.  Have students share the sequence they chose for the inventions, justifying their answers with clues from the Timeline of Events in History and their personal knowledge of history.  Explain that the impact of some inventions can be seen in future inventions, also that some inventions have a much more far-reaching impact than can be expected at the time (for example, the cotton gin and its relationship to the entrenchment of slavery in the United States or the Gold Rush on the development of blue jeans).  Finally, confirm to the students the correct sequence and matching years of the inventions.

 

 

 

Semi-Guided Practice:

 

 

 

 6. Remix students into new pairs.  Let them keep their Timelines of Events in History.  Give each pair a new list of 10-12 inventions/inventors, plus a list of the corresponding invention years.  No pair of students should have lists that are exactly the same, but they can have some inventions in common (including 1 or 2 inventions from the list the class used to practice the process).  Feel free to use as many of the inventions on the master list as well as any other inventions you wish to add from the sources above.  Feel free to group the inventions in any way that would best suit your needs and standards.  “You and your partner must look for clues on the Timeline as well as in your knowledge of history.  Take notes on those clues, then sequence the inventions as best you can, adding the appropriate invention years.”

 

 

 

7.Roam among the pairs and listen to them work.  Give hints and guidance.  When a pair feels they have their list in order and have matched the correct years to the inventions, check their work.  If they have mistakes, give hints and suggestions to guide students to use higher-order thinking skills and make appropriate connections.  If particularly stuck on a certain invention, allow that invention to be looked up in a reference source to allow the students to go on with the task.  If they are completely correct, collect the work and allow those students as singles to join a pair still in progress, creating a triad to finish the pair’s list.  Continue until all groups have completed the task accurately.

 

 

 

8.  The Timeline of Events in History is blown up to chart size. Student pairs/triads share each of their lists and their logical reasoning at how they arrived at the correct answers.  Having written each invention/inventor and year on strips or cards, these strips or cards are added to the timeline.  They may be added twice if appropriate, once in sequential order and once in a righthand column because they represent the impact or are related to a specific event on the Timeline of Events in History.

 

 

 

Independent Practice:

 

 

 

9.  Challenge students to research inventions or events that would be missing from the new master timeline.

 

 

 

10.  Have each student make a list of the 10 inventions he/she feels are the Top Ten inventions of all-time, those inventions that have had the greatest impact on the world.  Students should be ready to defend one of their selections when called on at random.

 

 

 

Optional:  Identify a personal need and make a detailed proposal for an invention that would solve the need.