Great Lakes Seaway Trail

Seaway Trail Lesson Plans

History

Lesson #1 – People in the War of 1812
Objectives: Students will learn about the people who played major roles in the War of 1812 by researching and creating trading cards to share with fellow classmates.

Lesson #2 – Battles of War of 1812
Objectives: Students will know about the number of battles that took place in War of 1812 by researching information and presenting their findings.

Lesson #3 – Ships during the War of 1812
Objectives: Students will learn about the life on a ship during the War of 1812 by reading the story of Ned Myers A Survivor’s Account of the Sinking of the Scourge taken from James Fenimore Cooper’s “A Life Before the Mast” found on the internet site http://external.oneonta.edu/cooper/articles/other/1997other-dudley.html. The students will create a writing piece where they write a journal or diary about their life on a ship.

Lesson #4 Subject: History - Architecture
Objective: Students will be able to identify and distinguish the different architecture styles by using worksheets to reconstruct some of the styles they learned.

Lesson #5 - Lighthouses
Objective: Students will be able to identify the different lighthouses along the New York Seaway Trail by reconstructing a model of a lighthouse and writing an essay about the history of the lighthouse.

Lesson #6 - Erie Canal and Eisenhower Locks
Objectives: Students will have the understanding about the New York Waterways and how they work by reading a story “Minnie the Mule and the Erie Canal”, by Lettie A. Petrie. Students will visit websites that have animated video on the sites showing how the canal system works. The students will reconstruct a model of the lock system.

Lesson #7 - Technology-Inventions
Objectives: Students will learn about different inventors through web-based research. The students will learn how to develop an idea for an invention by making a model or drawing of their invention. Students will also learn the importance of teamwork by working in groups on their invention.

Lesson #8 - History of the Underground Railroad in Northern New York
Objectives: Students will learn about the Underground Railroad and how people in Northern New York participated. Students will read two books about the Underground Railroad and be asked to write a journal entry as if they helped and assisted escaped slaves in route to Canada. They will also create a quilt patch of their home.

Lesson #9 - History of New York State Environmental Conservation
Objective: Students will understand the importance of Earth Day and protecting our natural resources by making recycled paper.

Nature

Lesson #1 - Ice Age
Objectives: Students will understand how our area we live in now was affected by the Ice Age. The students will conduct an experiment to see how ice can affect landscape. Students will color in two maps showing the changes in the landscape over the years.

Lesson #2 - Paleo-Indians
Objectives: Students will learn about the first settlers in North America. Students will learn how different the landscape was at the time and how people found ways to survive. Students will be broken in to groups of two. Each group will be given a Native American tribe to research. The Native American tribes will be tribes that lived in New York at different time periods. The groups will give a presentation on their tribe and mark on a large oversized map of New York the primary location where their tribe settled in New York.

Lesson #3 - Forests
Objectives:
1. Students will recognize the interdependent existence of natural and social environments.
2. Students will recognize that localized environmental changes can have far-reaching results.
3. Students will actively participate in the restitution of the American chestnut tree.

Lesson #4 – Seasons of a tree - Seaway Trail Wildguide
Objectives: Students will learn the difference between the calendar seasons and the ecological seasons of a tree. They will make a chart with four sections labeled the four seasons. Under each section the students will record the information about a tree and what happens to it during a season. Students will have an assignment to create drawings of a tree in the four seasons and write a paragraph about the things that happen to the tree during each season. The information from the season chart will be helpful for the students to use to write their assignment.

Lesson #5 - Fields and The Eastern Bluebird
Objectives: To have the students learn about the different species of birds you can find in the fields in New York. To teach the students how important the Eastern Blue Bird is to New York farmers.

Lesson #6 - Agriculture
Objectives: Students will be introduced to the agricultural economics of New York State by mapping out the different types of agriculture in New York. The students will look at the map that they have created by placing the different products and produce in each county of New York and discuss why they think certain produce grows in the areas they do.

Lesson #7 - Wetlands - Swamps and Bogs
Objectives: Students will know what the definition of a wetland is and the difference between a bog and a swamp. The students will watch a film and create a chart on wetlands. The students will complete a fill-in worksheet on the material covered. Students will write a letter to someone they know explaining to the person the importance of preserving our wetlands.

Lesson #8 – Wetlands - The Beaver
Objectives: Students will learn about the beaver and different species that live in the wetlands by creating a diorama or a drawing of the beaver or another animal’s habitat.

Lesson #9 - Sand Dunes
Objectives: Have students understand how a dune is created and the importance of the sand dunes are in preventing erosion by having the students create a drawing of the stages of a sand dune.

Culture

Lesson #1 - Culture Early Settlers
Objective: Have students understand how New York State was settled and by whom, by labeling the regions a map of New York with the different ethnic groups.

Lesson #2 – Local Artists
Objective: Students will be exposed to different local artists and create their own artwork using recycle material.

Lesson #3 - Local Music
Objective: Students will learn how music is one way to express and record a time period in history by learning about music in history. The students will write a sonnet or poem about a current event in their town, area, or in the world. They will pick out background music to play as they recite their work to the class.

Lesson #4 - Local Writers
Objective: Students will be exposed to different local authors’ work. The students will write a poem about someone or something special to them.

Lesson #5 – Native American’s Story Telling
Objective: Students will understand the culture of the Iroquois and how they used storytelling to teach their youth about their religion by memorizing a story and creating a story pouch to use as they retell a Native American story.

Lesson #6 - Agriculture/Amish
Objective: Students will learn how farming has grown through technology by creating a Venn Diagram comparing old and new farming equipment. Students will create another Venn Diagram comparing farming today with the Amish and their practices of farming. The students will use this information to complete the writing assignment.

Lesson #7 - Harvesting fur, ice, timber and minerals
Objective: The students will see how people throughout history have used New York State’s natural resources to make a living. Students will write an essay on what they learned about trading and bartering during the fur trading post activity. The students will solve mathematical word problems that connect with the harvesting of ice.

Lesson #8 - Tourism
Objective: Students will learn the history and the importance of tourism in their area’s economy. Students will create a brochure about local tourist attractions.

Cultural Lesson #9 - One room schoolhouse
Objective: Students will learn how schools have changed over the years by creating a Venn diagram and drawing a picture of a one-room schoolhouse and writing an essay that compares and contrasts the one-room schoolhouse to schools today. Students will also write the alphabet in cursive using ink pens (quill pens) and inkwells.