Sample Lesson #1: Exploring Architecture as an Artifact
Objectives: Students will be able to:
1. Distinguish the features of the 1911 Edgewood School and the present school they occupy
2. Compare and contrast the older and newer additions in terms of :
· Shape
· Building materials
· Designs
3. Ask questions about the building's architecture and formulate hypotheses explaining the different features of the school then and now.
Activities:
Explain to students that they will be time travelers going from present into the past as well as the future while exploring their own school building. Edgewood school was originally built in 1911 and then renovated in 1999.
1. Have students take a walk around the outside of the building taking notes in their time travelers' notebooks on what they observe about the old building and the newer additions. Allow students to share their observations and create a Venn diagram noting their findings. Follow-up their ideas with further questions deepening their thinking about why.
2. Have students take a walk around the inside of the building, making notes in their time travelers' journals about the differences between the older part to the building and the newer from the inside. This should include the design of the floors, size of rooms, lighting, windows and ceilings, bathrooms and the different building material used.
3. Pass out blueprint drawings of the building and have students examine the drawing. Have them outline the outside of the new addition with one colored marker and outline the older part of the building. Lead a discussion about what they noticed about the shapes of the building and why the old building was designed in a rectangular shape and the newer addition in a curved shape. Ask questions that will promote inquiry and hypotheses of these different designs using Bloom's taxonomy.
4. Pass out the aerial pictures of Edgewood and have students notice the two designs from the top. How do they match with the blueprints?
5. Have students work in their groups, discussing their architectural findings. Direct students to make inferences explaining the different designs and the purposes behind them as if they were looking back from the future trying to figure out this building.
6. Have groups prepare a short report of their findings and hypotheses as if they were reporting at a time travel archeologist's conference.
7. Have students prepare a scavenger hunt with at least 10 architectural features they found from the past and the present. Other classes can use this future activity.
Sample Lesson #2: Gargoyles as Artifacts
Objectives:
Students will be able to:
1. Understand what a gargoyle is and how it relates to being an artifact.
2. Demonstrate where you find gargoyles
3. Create a context or narrative about the gargoyles
4. Compare and contrast the Yale gargoyles with the Edgewood School gargoyles
5. Hypothesize the meaning behind the different gargoyles
6. Create their own gargoyle
Activities:
Building on the previous lesson's discovery and observations of the gargoyles on Edgewood's building:
1. The student will be asked to give a definition of a gargoyle from what they have observed on Edgewood School in the previous lesson. Next I will have them compare their definitions to a dictionary definition. Then the students will create a list of questions they want to know about the meaning and purpose of gargoyles.
2. Organize a field trip to the Yale University campus to notice the many gargoyles on the buildings. If possible arrange for a tour. Have the students bring their time travelers notebooks to make sketches and note observations about the Yale gargoyles.
3. Back at class, share observations. How are the Edgewood gargoyles similar and different from the Yale ones? Ask students what questions they have about them. Record on a class chart. Have students hypothesize about the purpose of the gargoyles on both buildings. Students can work in groups to gather information on the internet regarding any of the questions.
4. Have students create their own gargoyle and write the meaning or purpose of their gargoyle. Have students share their gargoyles and ask classmates to try and hypothesize what the meaning of their gargoyles.
Sample Lesson # 3: Edgewood School as a Place of Learning: Past, Present and Future
Objectives:
The students will be able to:
1. Develop an idea of what it was like to go to Edgewood School in 1911.
2. Develop ideas about what future archeologists might find as artifacts in their classrooms and what might they interpret them as.
3. Develop ideas about what Edgewood School will be like in the future.
Activities:
Past:
1. Have students create a list of questions they might ask someone who went to Edgewood School in 1911 when it first opened.
2. Students will be given artifacts from Edgewood's past, including a photograph of the class of 1921 and various scenes from the Westville neighborhood at the turn of the century. Students will note observations from the artifacts including type of dress, style of hair, modes of transportation, and neighborhood landscape.
3. Students will be given examples of magazine advertisements to further their ideas
of the time period.
4. Students will then visualize what it would be like to be a student at Edgewood School at that time period. They should include their knowledge of what they learned in the previous lessons about the architecture of the building and try to answer any of the questions they created at the beginning of the lesson.
5. Have students write a journal entry as if they were a student going to Edgewood School in 1911. They can create a fictional name and a narrative about what their life and school is like.
Present:
1. Have students create a collection of 5 artifacts from their classrooms.
2. Review the ideas of being future archeologists as in
Motel of the Mysteries.
3. Have the students create alternate uses for their artifacts that future archeologists might infer about these objects they discovered.
4. Students will create "Treasure Pages" such as the one below in
Motel of the
Mysteries.
Future:
1. Have students think about what Edgewood School might look in the year 2111
(at its next centennial)
2. Thinking back on the changes they have studied from 1911 to the present and using that information as a basis for their hypotheses.
3. Have students
- create artifacts from this future classroom
- create a new design for the building as if it was renovated again
- create the neighborhood around the school
This incorporates all the concepts studied up to this point, taking the micro to the macro and the past to the future.