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Your goal: to illustrate the effects of the Industrial Revolutions on society and the changing nature of work.
Choose an invention /technology: manufactured between 1780-1900. Check out the hundreds of technology & history books on library shelves. Browsing opens your mind to possibilities. Choose one that really grabs your attention. Here are some online books.
Create a poster (paper or online): illustrating how it evolved throughout time, including before, during and after its invention.
- Format: Create 4 columns describing the evolution of your invention in each age. Start by placing your invention in column 2 and fill in from there.
- THE AGRICULTURAL AGE: Rural, agricultural, family-based economy, with transportation based on water and ocean paths, wind, water and human power
- INDUSTRIAL AGE: Drastic transformation of the processes by which Europeans and Americans produced goods, and the social attitudes surrounding these processes. Urban, powerful machines using new sources of power
- DIGITAL AGE (CANADA TODAY): Digitized information as a product, urban and capitalist
- THE FUTURE: Your prediction for 2107
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COLUMN ONE THE AGRICULTURAL AGE
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COLUMN TWO INDUSTRIAL AGE
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COLUMN THREE DIGITAL AGE
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COLUMN FOUR THE FUTURE |
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PICTURES AND TEXT |
- FACTS |
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How things were done before your invention was created. E.g. manual labour, hand tools, handicrafts animal power; traditional, agrarian practices. |
Picture and labeled text of invention. Paragraph: What was its function? Who: invented it? When?
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Picture and labelled text of modern version of invention. Paragraph: How it is similar and different from the Industrial age version. |
Picture and labelled text of invention as it may evolve 100 years from now.
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ANALYSIS: |
- CRITICAL THINKING |
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Why was it a revolutionary idea? (e.g. speeded up production, eliminated the need for workers) |
How has the invention changed society positively? Has it contributed to environmental degradation and human suffering? |
OR If extinct, describe why no longer manufactured |
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What were the working conditions for the average worker using this invention/technology during the early industrial age? |
Is it very important to us today?
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CONCLUSION |
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English Resources
Lemelson Center For The Study Of Invention And Innovation
The website of the Lemelson Center at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. The site provides information about the centre, virtual exhibits and explorations (eg inventions, stories behind Nobel prizes, Thomas Edison, the electric guitar, the quartz watch), latest additions to the website, quick access for special interest groups, and Internet links.
Invent Now : National Inventors Hall of Fame
The National Inventors Hall of Fame museum (in Akron, Ohio) celebrates over 150 men and women whose patented inventions, life-saving tools, labour-saving devices, and technological innovations have become the basis of the American economy and society. This website provides a searchable and browsable database of inventors and inventions, with brief biographies. Information is given about competitions and activities at the museum, and how to patent inventions.
More details
Making the modern world
Making the Modern World is an impressive website that charts the development of modern industrial society, and the changes in science, technology and medicine from the eighteenth century onwards.
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