Industrial Revolutions

Content

Inquiry

  • Should this era of industrialization be called an Industrial Revolution? Why or why not?

  • What were the results of the industrial revolutions? How was technology, and the environment transformed by industrialization?

  • How did industrial revolutions affect governments, countries, and national identity in similar and different ways?

Learning Activities

Britain Solves a Problem and Creates the Industrial Revolution

From Education and the Environment Initiative Curriculum (EEI)

Content: Analyze why England was the first country to industrialize. (10.3.1). Understand the connections among natural resources, entrepreneurship, labor, and capital in an industrial economy (10.3.5).

Lessons:

  1. New Challenges, New Opportunities, New Technology

  2. The Industrial Revolution Changes Everything

  3. More People, More Cotton, More Coal

  4. The Ultimate Cause of the Industrial Revolution

  5. Inventions of the Industrial Revolution

  6. Considering the Cause

Factory Life

From Stanford History Education Group (SHEG)

Inquiry: How do you make sense of contrasting accounts of historical events? What makes one source more reliable than another? How does corroborating information across sources help confirm or discredit historical accounts?

In this lesson, students engage in such questions as they evaluate and compare different types of primary source documents with different perspectives on working conditions in English textile factories at the beginning of the 19th century.

Industrialization

From C3Teachers.org (College, Career, and Civic Life)

Engage/Prepare the Learner: Using a map showing technological innovations from 1715 to 1815, preview the growth of industry in Great Britain by having students make predictions about how these innovations affected daily life and society.

Inquiry: How did the Industrial Revolution move people?

Lessons:

  1. Where did people move to and from during the Industrial Revolution?

  2. How did daily life move before and during the Industrial Revolution?

  3. How did the Industrial Revolution move society backward?

  4. How did the Industrial Revolution move society forward?

Learning Outcomes: Students will...

  • Draw a population map of Britain highlighting where people were moving and annotate the pull factors that led them there.

  • Using a Venn diagram, compare and contrast the ways daily life moved before and during the Industrial Revolution.

  • Develop a claim supported by evidence that explains how the Industrial Revolution moved society backward.

  • Develop a counterclaim for the previous claim using evidence that explains how the Industrial Revolution moved society forward.

Citizenship:

  • Students hold a classroom debate on how the Industrial Revolution moved people, ultimately coming to a conclusion on whether it moved society backward or forward.

  • Investigate the challenges of an economic boom/bust in the community by researching a company, business, factory, etc. that recently moved in or out of the region. Weigh the positive and negative impacts for various stakeholders (e.g., laborers, company owners, government employees) that come with the company or factory’s moving in or moving out. Write an editorial for a local newspaper detailing your opinion on the company or factory’s decision to move in or out and whether or not this movement benefits the community as a whole.

Growth of Population, Cities, and Demands

From Education and the Environment Initiative Curriculum (EEI)

Content: Describe the growth of population, rural to urban migration, and growth of cities associated with the Industrial Revolution (10.3.3).

Lessons:

  1. Los Angeles on the Move

  2. Birth of the Modern City

  3. How Modern Cities Influence Natural Systems

  4. Laws and Policies to Manage Natural Resources

  5. Governments Respond to Managed Growth