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Summary and Objective
Students will understand that transportation affects daily life and community interaction. They will examine types of tranportation used in US history to understand similarities and differences.
Teaching Plan
Step 1.
Have children brainstorm ways that we move from one place to another today and explain that this is called transportation. Discuss with students the ways in which transportation affects our daily lives (parents go to work, students to school, travel, get food and things we need, health care, mail, etc). Have the students brainstorm as many uses for transportation as they can.
Step 2.
Tell the students that you are going to read a story about a family who uses transportation to solve a problem. Read "Mailing May" by Micheal O. Tunnel. After reading, discuss how transportation played a role in the story (a little girl gets mailed to her grandmother because her family cannot pay the train fare).
Step 3.
Divide the students into groups of 3-4. Prepare materials previously by printing several different photographs from the PVMA American Centuries digital collection. Pass each group a different picture.
Step 4.
Have each group discuss how the transportation in the photo is different or the same from what we use today. Ask the students to make predictions about how that type of transportation was used. As a whole group, have the students share their thoughts and photographs. Explain the uses of the types of tranportation (see information on the digital collection).
Step 5.
For older students, you may want to go into more detail about the importance of bridges and tunnels and how this may have affected community development and interaction.
Step 6.
Have students draw pictures of themselves or others using transportation in their daily lives. Fold a piece of paper in half and label each half "then" and "now." For example, students could draw themselves using transportation to get to school "then" and "now" on the two different sides.
Step 7.
Post activity: With older students, have them discuss how transportation relates to space travel and have them make predictions about future exploration.
Step 8.
Post activity: Have students read about other types of transportation in US history: Travel and Transport Long Ago by Helen Edom; Life in America 100 Years Ago: Transportation by Linda Leuzzi; Transportation: A Pictoral History of the Past One Thousand Years by John Hamilton; On Wheels by Huck Scarry.
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