Asian, African, or Australian inventors & inventions

The lesson integrates both Social Studies and Language Arts in a research and a creative writing component. The student will further understand inventors or inventions from Asia, Africa, and Australia, the focused continents in the 7th grade Social Studies curriculum, as well as have the opportunity to develop his/her writing, reading, and oral communication skills. The project also incorporates mathematics with an emphasis on percentages and graphing.

A lesson plan for grade 7 English Language Arts, Information Skills, Mathematics, and Social Studies

By Jeff Rachlin and Melissa Reid

Learn more

• NC WiseOwl This site provides excellent resources for North Carolina students to use in doing their research portion and has links to periodicals, magazines, and Grolier Encyclopedia. Subscription purchased by the State of North Carolina for school use only, but similar services may be available in libraries in your community.
• NoodleTools Here students can access NoodleQuest where they can refine their research topics and get help in their initial searches.

Related pages

• Intrigue of the Past: Teach your students about North Carolina's fascinating past. This edition contains lesson plans about the fundamental concepts, processes, and issues of archaeology, as well as essays for the teacher with detailed information about four periods in North Carolina's ancient history.
• Good medicine: Students will examine changes in technology, medicine, and health that took place in North Carolina between 1870 and 1930 and construct products and ideas which demonstrate understanding of how these changes impacted people living in North Carolina at that time. To achieve these goals, students will employ the eight intelligences of Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory.
• India's path to independence: This interdisciplinary plan includes the study of the effects of imperialism and India's struggle for independence through history texts, literary works, and online resources. Activities include a seminar, research, and a news broadcast. Although this unit is designed for integrated English II and World Civilizations, lessons can be adapted to other class structures.

Related topics

• Learn more about Africa, Asia, Australia, Information skills, culture, data, graphing, history, interdisciplinary, inventions, inventors, language arts, mathematics, persuasion, point-of-view, research, social studies, statistics, and writing.

Help

Please read our disclaimer for lesson plans.

Legal

Learning outcomes

Goals

• Students will research inventors and inventions of Asia, Africa, or Australia.
• Students will provide a speech on his/her product topic.
• Students will graph the effectiveness of their product.
• Students will use percentages to analyze the demand for his/her product.

Objectives

• Students will research and write a “10 step” paper on their invention or inventor.Students will create his/her own invention and build it.
• Students will develop a commercial for his/her invention to be presented to the class.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

6 Weeks

Materials/resources

• Paper and pencil
• Other resources of historical importance available in the library.
• Poster Paper
• Colored Pens, Pencils, Crayons

Technology resources

• Color Monitor
• Computer with access to the internet
• Inspiration Software

Pre-activities

• The students will watch two videos on inventions of the 20th century “For All Mankind” by the NASA and “From Dreams to Realities” by Channel One. Both detail various inventions we have seen over the years.
• The students will then list on the board all of the inventions that they think have made a dramatic impact on either their lives, their country, or the world. This will help spark direction and interest in the activity. The videos will also allow students to visually understand the impact that some of these inventions have on society, and the process these inventions had to go through. You can help foster higher level of thinking by incorporating thinking maps and webbing.
• Students should review the 10 step writing process as well (or whatever process you use since this is teacher created). If you would like further information about the 10 step process please refer to information for teachers or e-mail me.
• In math the students will have the opportunity to practice graphing M&M colors in a bag. You can do various graphing activities by using the colors of M&M’s in a bag as the ratios or percentages.

Activities

Activities are divided by discipline; Information Skills, Social Studies, Language Arts and Math.

Informational Skills

(suggested: 3-4 class periods)

Day 1

Going over procedures for use of the library, the different sources of information, and how to properly use the computer. This guides the student through their research, and reminds them of some of the Informational Skills Standards that will be learned. The librarian will show the students Noodle Quest using the LCD panel to help students find possible sources of information on the computer. The librarian will have also laid out all of the research materials on inventions including:

• Eureka series of inventions c. 1995
• Inventions and Inventors c.2000
• Profiles in World History by Joyce Moss
• Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists c.1981

Each library should have different sources available.

Day 2 and 3

Library research time

The librarian works with the students on hard copy materials, and the teacher may work with students on Internet. Web site suggestions are listed below the web sites section. The students will not be searching to create their own invention yet; rather the students will just be researching their chosen inventor or invention.

Day 4

Classroom or Library

Browse all types of inventions on the Internet using the video overhead to demonstrate to the class where sample searches may lead. Use that information for guiding discussion on what they would invent if they had the opportunity. It is at this time that you may let them know that the task is to create their own invention, market it, and make a commercial for it.

Social Studies

(suggested: 10 class periods, counting presentations)

1. The students will review some of the major inventions of Asia, Africa, and Australia. It is during this time that the students will be given the task to research an inventor or invention from their choice of either Asia, Africa, or Australia.
2. Their paper will be written in Language Arts, but the presentations of their findings may be in Social Studies.
3. Their report should include a drawing of either the inventor or invention, the significance of the inventor or invention, what did the inventor make (or who made the invention), and what is the history of the impact of the invention following creation.
4. Once the students present their inventions, the students will be given the information for the second part of the unit. In small groups they will be able to design anything that they want that adds on to one of the inventions that were discussed about Asian, African, or Australian inventions. On the large paper, the students will record:
1. What they are going to make.
2. Why it is important.
3. Who is the market for this product.
4. A basic sketch of the invention.
5. Once the groups have shared the students will be given their individual invention project.

Language Arts

(suggested: 10 class periods total, less if some of the assignment is given for homework)

1. After the students have spent their days in the library and understand the topic through instruction in Social Studies, it is now time to begin writing. One day may be spent reviewing the class writing process for writing a paper.
• To demonstrate, you may choose to walk students through a class activity demonstrating the process using the invention of the car or another significant invention. This will show the students what should be in every paragraph of their paper.
2. Give the students a week to compose their paper, and allow the students to have one day of peer editing.
3. The second component of Language Arts is the creative invention paper. They are basically writing a point of view paper, and since we have already reviewed the way to write a paper, this may be accomplished in perhaps 3 class meetings.
4. The last component of Language Arts is the speech or sales-pitch of their invention. This will occur after they have had time to work on graphing. This will give the students visual aids to use, and it will allow time for them to make their poster.
• A criterion for the poster is in the assessment section.
5. They will be giving a speech in front of the class showing what they have come up with for their own invention. Criteria and things to review with students before this speech would go along with the criteria for assessment.

Math

(suggested: 5 class periods)

1. The students will be working with circle graphs and issuing a survey; it may be necessary to review these concepts if they have not worked with this recently.
2. The students will survey 100 people about their invention. They will then take the data that they have collected and create a frequency chart, bar graph, and a circle graph. The data will be analyzed and can be used in their speeches for Language Arts.
3. Each student will receive “seed money” of ten million dollars. They must figure out how to best spend it towards the manufacture, marketing and distribution of their product. The students must figure out fixed costs (including rent, overhead expenses like insurance, and equipment) and variable costs (labor, electricity, materials for construction of the invention, etc.).
4. Some of the information may be given to them or you may brainstorm the required elements as a class. For example, you may provide expense guidelines like:
• Hourly wage of employee $7 hr
• Using machines to build $50,000 per task.
• Cost of product must at least be 115% higher than the cost to build.
• Posters cost $3 each
• Billboards $10,000 a month
• Commercials are $100,000 each
• Factory is $20,000 a month to run

Other items can be added or removed depending on the level of the class.

Assessment

Student will be judged on research by:

1. Observation in the library and the computer lab.
2. Quality and quantity of relevant material collected.
3. Material should be from a variety of sources. For example, 2 different Web sites and one book or other print reference.
4. A basic rubric incorporating these three factors can be created as a whole-class project with the students’ assistance.

Research Paper

• Judged by following ten steps and prewriting work completed.
• 4 point holistic scoring guide (created for the 7th grade writing test by DPI)

Invention

• Judged by student-created rubric

Speech

• Judged on eye contact, energy, gestures, rate of speech, time, use of notecards, and effort.
• Outline should be turned in.

Posters

• Judged on effort
• Creative Title of Invention
• Slogan
• Does the artwork make you more interested in the product?

Survey Project

• Name and questions to be asked 5 points
• 100 people surveyed 5 points
• Frequency Chart 5 points
• Bar Graph 5 points
• Circle Graph 5 points
• Paragraph summarizing what was learned 3 points
• Overall points and neatness 5 points

Creating a business

• Rubric set up by students for how they will be judged.

Supplemental information

Inspiration is a computer program that allows students to organize their writing through the use of graphic organizers. This may also be used when brainstorming the business expenses in Math or making connectoins between inventions and their historical impact in Social Studies.

10 Step Paper

1. KYT (Know Your Topic) writing your topic sentence
2. List - Bubble Map
3. Pick 3 - Pick your three strongest connections to your initial bubble.
4. 3-2-1 - Put the ideas in order from weakest connection to the strongest.
5. SEE Chart -Like a tree map, but using S-tate, E-xplain, E-xample in the chart.
6. In/Out - Introduction and conclusion (eye, idea (KYT), points {CONCLUSION is same in reverse
7. Transitions
8. Draft
9. Edit
10. Final Copy