As place in this unit is limited to New England, New Haven is the most obvious and accessible representative town to explore. Since one of the objectives of the unit is to examine change through time, maps of New Haven at various times can be compared and constructed. Both public and personal events will be charted in chronological time.
Section 1: Maps
A map is a representation of a specific area on paper. The relationship between the area and the representation on paper is expressed by using scale, direction, distance and landmarks. There is a map of the world in the room. What other kinds of maps are there? What are they used for? Have some additional examples such as a highway or topographical map.
Direction
Using a compass, students determine the orientation of the school. We will look at how direction is indicated on maps with a compass rose.
Scale
Suggested drawing projects (#1) are illustrated in the resource packet. This may be followed by a class discussion using examples from life or literature. Children’s literature has abundant examples, from “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” to
Alice in Wonderland
, of children examining scale and disproportionate size.
Landmarks
Worthington Hooker School is one man-made landmark in our neighborhood. What other kinds of landmarks are there? Students will be given a xerox map of the city and a homework assignment: using three different colored pencils, find three different routes from home to school on the current city map. Identify personal landmarks (as the location of a friend or relative’s home, where grocery shopping is done, where clothing and toys are purchased, etc.). Maps are saved in a folder constructed of folded and stapled oak-tag or construction paper that may also be stenciled. Fieldtrips may be indicated on city maps.
Vocabulary:
Scale, distance, landmarks and compass rose.
At the beginning of the second class, students draw from memory on graph paper the route they took to school that morning. Students may estimate that each block or two on the paper can be used to represent a city block and thus combine scale and distance. The insurance map of 1901, the year that Worthington Hooker School was constructed, shows the proportionate size of blocks in the area contiguous to the school.
The class takes clipboard, paper and pencil outside to draw the front exterior of the school—a neighborhood landmark. Preparatory to drawing, we discuss the rectangular shape of the building, the smaller rectangles of windows, chimneys, and doors, the semi-circle archway, the horizontals of the steps, the triangles formed by the roof. As the front exterior of the building is perfectly symmetrical, an exercise in symmetry—paper-folding and cutouts—may also precede the drawing. Drawings of the school should be kept at school and later added to either the class or individual timeline as illustration.
Five other maps representing different times in the history of the city of New Haven are available in the resource materials packet. During the next class and before the field trip to The Green, students will be given copies of maps for a class discussion to chart the growth of the city from nine squares and observe changes in land use. For example, we can compare the differences between the 1641 map and that of 1748 in 1) area covered, 2) number and kind of buildings, 3) changes in water areas. The map of 1824 shows neither canal nor basin. By 1830 the Farmington Canal is completed as well as the Union Basin in the harbor. By 1868, the canal has been converted to a railroad line.
Some students may enjoy working on their own with a xerox of one of these maps, using watercolors, or tempera, and turning a map into a jigsaw puzzle or board game, as was done in the eighteenth century. In 1762 John Spilsbury in England produced jigsaw maps as a teaching aid; in 1759 John Jefferys invented a board game called “A Journey Through Europe or The Play of Geography” (Gottlieb and Plumb xxviii).
Classrooms plan for construction of a relief map of New Haven made of paper mache, clay, cardboard, or wood. In addition to being a three dimensional exhibit in the upstairs hall, the map is photographed. Successive groups of students alter the map to show changing features of the city as the unit progresses. Mounted photos of all stages invite inspection by other classes in the school. Construction of the paper mache map will be an ongoing and cooperative art project.
This unit may logically be extended with science projects concerning water, as water has played such an important role in the city’s development, from its location on Long Island Sound, to water used for transportation and trade, the important oyster industry, and power—for the Whitney factory. Experiments could investigate the properties of water as a solid, liquid and gas, the water cycle, and the different ways water has been used in this city.
Lesson four will be a field trip to the New Haven
Green to see and draw New Haven architecture. Before leaving for field trips, the class can plot some possible routes to get there on the map, and examine our historical maps for clues to how the area looked. This will generate a group of questions to think about during the trip to focus observations. From the 1824 map, for example, we see the present position of the three churches. What buildings might still be in the same place? (The John Pierpont House of 1767 remains at 149 Elm Street, the Nicholas Callaham House of 1770 at 125 Elm Street). How has Center Church changed? (Both in structure and position.) Special cards for taking notes and answering questions accompany trips. Responses are written before reboarding the bus.
Students bring clipboards and drawing paper to draw the exterior of Center Church.
Section 2: Timelines
In order to place both people of former times and ourselves in time and in history, we create a scrolled timeline out of unwaxed shelf paper on one wall of the classroom. The school year 1991-1992 lends itself to beginning the timeline with 1492 and the celebrated (in 1992 probably much celebrated) discovery, for Europeans, of the North American continent by Columbus. The
National Geographic
map “Where Did Columbus Discover America?” (resource materials packet) which shows possible routes and some translated excerpts from his diary (see materials packet) can be used to begin discussions of this “discovery”. What does “discover” mean? What did Columbus discover? What can we learn about him by reading his diary? There is an opportunity for classroom teachers to submit student “Columbus Day” essays for a city-wide contest.
Since we are comparing children’s lives in three time periods, the main purpose of the timeline is to establish landmarks of each period, and to make transitions visible, for example, an idea or the creation of an invention, and its later effect on everyday life. Two hundred and fifty years after Columbus’ diary records his arrival in San Salvador, and half-way to the present time on the timeline, 1742, marks the colonial period. The “pre-modern” federalist period is our next stage, and the present time is the last. As the unit progresses, other dates, events (international, national or city), and historical New Haven figures, such as Eli Whitney, can be filled in on the timeline and illustrated.
As a homework assignment, students create a personal timeline in the form of a scroll, from their birth to the present, that might include photos, drawings of their present house or apartment, a family tree, important personal events like the first day of school or the first day at Worthington Hooker School, learning to ride a bike, swim. During this week, students spend about thirty minutes a day working on their timeline; parents will be asked to help if needed. (A letter home to parents would be helpful.)