Integrating History with Reinventing Science Kits |
| Reinventing Science Kits are
designed with optional history lessons that help teachers integrate
history and social studies into their science or technology classes.
Since each kit is designed around one of the great inventions it is
appropriate to teach students about the inventors, the times they lived
in, and the effects their invention has had on peoples lives up until this
very day. This also helps correlate these kits to the science and
technology standards because it helps to show students the effects and
impacts of science and technology upon our world. Almost no invention is the sole work of one person but instead requires the creative efforts of many people. In our kits we try to highlight this fact. You may have heard the names Edison or Morse in conjunction with many inventions such as the light bulb or telegraph but we will try to tell more of the story and show other people were also involved. We also invite students to do more research of their own into the devices, inventors, and impacts on their times and ours. For example, in "Reinventing Edison: Build your own Light Bulb" students will learn that the property of incandescence by passing an electrical current through a conductor was known since the early 1800's and that Edison had many other competitors that had also achieved similar results. Edison did two things that these other people did not... he patented his ideas first, and he built a complete system and infrastructure around his bulbs. It wasn't just the bulb but the wiring, the fixtures, the switches, the generators, and a way to pay for all of this. For these reasons Edison's name is still recognizable in households over one hundred years later where as other inventors like Swan are less known today. It is appropriate to team up with a social studies or history teacher in your school in order to team teach these lessons in science, technology, and social studies classes. From this historical perspective students should then learn that their own actions, and inventions can have long standing effects on society and the environment. |
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Build Your Own Light Bulb Kit * Build Your Own Telegraph Kit About the Standards * Use them in a Science Fair * History Integration |
Reinventing Science Kits (tm) by Harris Educational Kits, Instructions, and Lesson Play Design: Copyright 2003 by Harris Educational All Rights Reserved
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