Learning Center: Lesson Plan: Middle School: Economic Development
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Title: Resources and Economic Development
Objectives:
Students will be able to:
• Identify potential economic developments based on an area’s natural resources.
Standards Met:
Economics:
• Understand how tradeoffs and opportunity costs can be identified and measured.
• Understand how price is an incentive for both buyers and producers/sellers in the marketplace.
Geography:
• Identify economic and environmental factors that affect population.
• Understand how changes in a physical environment affect human activity (economic development).
Social Sciences Analysis:
• Evaluate data within the context it was created testing its reliability, credibility and bias.
• Distinguish between cause and affect relationships and events.
Materials/Resources Needed:
• Computer lab for access to Oregon TimeWeb; projector
• Tri-fold presentation boards.
• Chart of the Lower Columbia River Showing the Location of Salmon Apparatus, etc.
• Coos Bay Lumber Company with Steam Donkeys and Felled Timber
• Gillnet Fishing near Astoria
• News Article: As if by Magic
• Rill-type Irrigation, Parks Ranch
• Workers at the Bonneville Dam Site
Anticipatory Set:
This lesson can either be taught in a unit of Oregon history or in conjunction with a unit on Westward Expansion and The Oregon Trail.
• Have students, in pairs, brainstorm:
Natural resources in Oregon.
Industries instrumental to the development of Oregon’s economy.
• Provide realia (objects used to relate classroom teaching to real life):
Stick of wood, can of tuna fish, computer chip, running shoe, wheat, grass, water (shipping industry), toy train (railroads), gold, fur, tourism, casinos, cattle, fruit-packing…
Lesson Description:
• 1. Divide class into groups of 4-5. Using the Oregon TimeWeb, these groups will research natural resources in Oregon from their discovery to their current place in Oregon’s economy. The research will culminate in a Natural Resource Fair, where each group will design and present a booth with unique activities germane to their findings.
2. Each group will produce a unique presentation resulting from their group experience using the interactive TimeWeb. Groups will be asked to identify 3-5 specific natural resource industries that have evolved in Oregon.
3. Groups will use the Oregon TimeWeb to build time lines. Students will be required to look at the alphabetical list of topics to determine which ones would be appropriate to build the timeline that would reflect industry and natural resources. Examples would be Industry/Trade/Business; Natural Resources & Environment; Agriculture, and so on.
4. For each resource/industry, students will take notes on the following:
* Discovery of the natural resource.
* Earliest attempts to incorporate into the economy by extracting, producing, developing, and etc. the resource into a viable market.
* Key people or groups of people involved in the industry.
* Important dates or events in the development of the industry.
* Obstacles encountered.
* Technology developed specifically as a result of or to benefit the industry.
* Trends of the industry.
* Current status of the industry in Oregon.
A packet of primary source documents will be available to each group. Research should begin with those items and expand to other useful sources in the school library.
• Create a rubric on which to base assessment for the presentations. This should include how the presentation looks, what and how much information is included, creativity of activity.
• Provide each group with a tri-fold presentation board. On this, the students will display their findings. The focal point of the board should be one of the primary source documents with which they started. In addition, the research results should be displayed in charts, graphs, pictures, relevant narratives and any realia that is relevant to their topic.
In addition, the group will design an activity for their booth and a short list of important facts from which an assessment will be based. The activities should be creative and relevant to their topic to engage their fellow students in learning about their subject. For example, a group working with gold could bring in butterscotch chip cookies and have their peers mine for chips using toothpicks. The wheat group could find a grinder and let the students grind wheat. Brainstorm as a class several possibilities for different groups to help ideas to flow, but stress that original ideas should be used.
• Set aside a day for the Natural Resource Fair. Allow ample time for students to get around to all the booths. A student should stay posted at each booth to answer questions and help with the activity, but each group needs to rotate through to allow for all to observe and participate. As the students move from booth to booth, they should complete an information gathering sheet that includes the following:
* Name of Natural Resource
* Name of Industry
* Key people or groups
* Important dates or events
* Based on the given information, what will be the future for this industry in Oregon?
Assessment:
Use rubric developed at the beginning of the lesson to evaluate the presentations. In addition, a quiz/test could be given over the information gleaned from each booth.
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