Primary Source Exemplar: Life on the Move
Learning Objectives
Increase student understanding of vocabulary words: transport, distance, time and scale
Students will...
Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
Model with mathematics.
Use appropriate tools strategically.
Attend to precision.
Look for and make use of structure.
Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
Content Standards
- Measurement and Data
- Solve problems involving measurement and conversion of measurements from a larger unit to a smaller unit.
- 4.MD.2 Use the four operations to solve word problems involving distances, intervals of time, liquid volumes, masses of objects, and money, including problems involving simple fractions or decimals, and problems that require expressing measurements given in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit. Represent measurement quantities using diagrams such as number line diagrams that feature a measurement scale
Materials Needed
The First Transcontinental Railroad (text with map)
Route of the transcontinental railroad
http://www.maps.google.com
High Speed Railways: Locomotive and carriage Institution
Procedures
1. Introduce the lesson
a. Using a United States Map and the information supplied by the PBS.org route guide, have student put dots on the map at each point listed.
b. Using a map with a scale, measure the distance from the beginning of the route to the end. List each leg as a separate distance, then have the students add them up.
c. Project a map of the U.S. on the board. Together, with their data in hand, have students pinpoint the route and list the distance for each leg. Make a class chart of the distance of each leg.
d. Using the data: the average speed of a steam locomotive in 1890 = 60MPH (http://www.lococarriage.org.uk/high_speed_rail.htm) -- Ask students, “How long would it take someone to get from New York to California? Nebraska to Colorado?” [choose distances for practice]
e. Calculate how fast a high speed rail would go between the destinations below: (http://www.ushsr.com/benefits/timesavings.html)
DC >> New York City- 1 hour, 15 minutes
NYC >> Boston- 1 hour, 15 minutes
NYC >> Montreal- 1 hour, 45 minutes
Tampa >> Orlando- 35 minutes
Orlando >> Miami- 1 hour, 20 minutes
f. Activity: Automobile and Airplane.
Bring out the Eisenhower map used before.
Compare/Contrast the same route of the Transcontinental Railroad with the automobile.
Compare /Contrast the same route of the Transcontinental Railroad with the modern airplane
Note to teachers: You can extend this lesson by adding in the information on the speed of cars and the speed of planes today.