Choose Your View	10 Big Ideas	Electronic Field Trips

Electronic Field Trips
Plimoth Plantation Field Trip

	Brief Description Objectives Materials and Resources Activity Description Internet Resources

• Grade level: Upper or Lower Elementary

• Subject Area: Social Studies

Brief Description

    Students will visit the Plimoth Plantation web site to learn more about how people lived in this country during the 17th century. This lesson can provide a great supplement to traditional studies about pilgrims and Native Americans.
Objectives

    Students will:

• Use visual materials as a source of data.
• Work in collaborative groups

Materials and Resources

1. Hardware requirements: A computer and modem.

2. Software requirements: Web browser, preferably Netscape. [http://home.netscape.com/]

3. Network/Internet requirements: Access to internet.

Activity Description

    Pre-activity Preparation

    As part of a larger unit on pilgrims and Native Americans during the 17th century, discuss with children how they think our lives today might be different from the lives of people back then. Specifically, address how people might have dressed and what sort of houses they lived in. You may want to record the children's predictions on a piece of chart paper. You may also want to read two books about pilgrims to the students: Sarah Morton's Day and Samuel Eaton's Day by Kate Waters. These books give a great background on the lives of pilgrim children.

• Organize students into research groups. Each group will be responsible for researching one aspect of people's lives: either dress or housing. You may want to give students recording sheets that ask them questions such as: What did people's clothing look like? What sorts of things do you think that they used to make their clothes? How do their clothes look different than ours today? What sort of materials do we use to make our clothes today? etc.

• Have students go to the Plimoth Plantation
  [http://spirit.lib.uconn.edu/ArchNet/Topical/Historic/Plimoth/Plimoth.html] and investigate their questions. Students can be guided to specific areas of the site-- for example housing researchers can be pointed to the links to photos of houses-- or you can allow students to explore the site and discover resources that will help them answer their questions.

• Gather the group back together and discuss students' findings, focusing on the differences that students noted.

• Have children create an art project, placing themselves in the 17th century-- drawing a picture of themselves in 17th century dress or of what their house would look like if they lived in the 17th century.

Internet Resources

• Plymouth History
  [http://media3.com/plymouth/history.htm]
  Information on Plymouth and many of the people who were among its early citizens.

• America's Homepage
  [http://media3.com/plymouth/]
  Homepage for Plymouth, MA. Learn how Plymouth looks today!

Choose Your View	10 Big Ideas	Electronic Field Trips