Friday, February 25, 2011

lesson plan thoughts

For my integrated technology lesson plan, I am thinking of using Google Earth to teach about the geography of Civil War battles. Battles are often taught by presenting the two sides and then saying who won, and maybe talking about some of the weapons or tactics that they used. However, I want my students to think about battles from a historically analytical perspective and geography plays a huge part in that. The locations of hills, rivers, streams, forested areas, and fields can all affect how and why a battle played out the way it did. Luckily, physical geography has not changed that much in the last 150 years so the students can do this analysis in a hands on way with Google Earth. Google Earth works perfectly because I can direct students to turn off the human layers of geography and just look at the physical geography of their particular battle. Students can work in groups on different battles, using Google Earth to come up with theories about why the battle occurred there, why the Union or Confederate troops moved in a particular way, and why one side ended up winning. One misconception this might help clarify is the idea that all Civil War battles were the same, with both sides lining up, one side charging, and the other side firing back on them. In fact, each battle was unique in its outcome and this often had a lot to do with the geography of the battlefield, which students will be able to see on Google Earth. They will get involved with the Civil War without having to look like this guy:


Original Image: "Civil War 1"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frankpierson/4472742319/sizes/s/in/photostream/
by: frankpierson

Released under an Attribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
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3 comments:

  1. RachelDMarch 14, 2011 at 4:31 PM

    I love how you are incorporating history with current technology. This lesson allows students to see what it would have looked like to be fighting on the land back then. When I was in highs school learning about the civil war there was a permanent glaze over my eyes. Teachers made it so boring by only placing importance on dates and people. Your lesson does the opposite. I think students would actually be interested in learning about the civil war and interacting with history rather than reading it.

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  2. AndyVMarch 16, 2011 at 4:56 PM

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  3. AndyVMarch 16, 2011 at 4:58 PM

    Thanks! I think it is really important for history teachers to make sure they come up with lessons that are as engaging as possible because we are always battling the idea students have that history is boring.

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