A virtual field trip...
The Underground Railroad
This online field trip is part of our preparation for a real-time field trip to the National Freedom Center Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio. Our middle school students will travel to Cincinnati on Tuesday, April 4, 2006.
Research Experience Demonstrate Time to go
Preparing for the journey...
To learn more about the underground railroad before traveling on it yourself, visit www.unitedstreaming.com and follow these steps to find out more information:
Enter username "cse.s1" and password "cse.s1"
Under 'playlists' (top right) choose "district lists"
Find "Thompson - Underground Railroad"; you are required to view and listen to "Why did the Underground Railroad Exist", "What was the Underground Railroad", and "Escape Routes".
You choose at least two other clips to view, and share what you learned with a classmate.
**You know by now that the Underground Railroad
was neither underground nor a railroad. But do you know how
it got its name? Find out by visiting
http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/undergroundrailroad/a/undergroundrr.htm
and
http://education.ucdavis.edu/new/stc/lesson/socstud/railroad/Whatis.htm
**What events created the climate
of slavery? of anti-slavery? View these timelines:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/99/railroad/tl.html
**How did slave owners react when
slaves tried to escape? See these wanted posters, allowed by the Fugitive
Slave Bill of 1850:
http://education.ucdavis.edu/new/stc/lesson/socstud/railroad/SlaveLaw.htm
**Who helped slaves to get to
freedom? (Harriet Tubman was not the lone conductor on the Underground
Railroad!) Read these very brief biographies of those who helped:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/99/railroad/hfame.html
http://pathways.thinkport.org/library/people.cfm
**What happened here in
Columbus, Ohio? Visit this special Columbus Dispatch site to explore
hometown connections to the Underground Railroad:
http://www.dispatch.com/railroad/ Explore this site thoroughly!
Take the place of a slave who has to make
decisions every step along the journey to freedom. Can you make it?
Experience the journey for yourself by traveling through either of the
following:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/99/railroad/j1.html
http://pathways.thinkport.org/following/
*As you travel, keep a journal. Begin with an introduction of who you are, and explain why you are traveling on this railroad. Make a new entry each time you have to make a decision, and explain your thought process. Later, you can explore if your decision turned out for the best, or if you might make a different choice given the opportunity. Make sure your emotions are clear in your writing as well as the facts surrounding each step of your journey.
You have several options to choose from to show what you've learned about the Underground Railroad. Click on the picture next to each option to view the rubric which will be used to assess your final product:
Using the above
timeline (
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/99/railroad/tl.html )
choose the 7 most important events in your opinion. Using Word or
Powerpoint, reconstruct your abbreviated timeline, adding some extra details
you find through further research. Include a brief statement
explaining why you believe these to be the most important events of the
slavery/anti-slavery era.
After completing your journal on your way to
freedom, think about some other perspectives: Slaveowners who
discovered they'd lost workers in the night; people who helped at each
'railroad stop'. Journal again, but this time as either a slaveowner
or someone who assisted runaways. Include your actions over a period
of several days, as well as your feelings about what you are doing.
Create your own 'Wanted' poster, modeled
after one of the samples given above (http://education.ucdavis.edu/new/stc/lesson/socstud/railroad/SlaveLaw.htm
) Make sure your poster is historically accurate.
Continue to research important people of the
time period (maybe using people important in Ohio, specifically). Construct a powerpoint presentation telling about the
person's life, including why they became involved in the antislavery
movement, and why they are well known. The Freedom Center's biography
site,
http://www.freedomcenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_id=2D1B86F5-826D-432A-B131527256964C3A
suggests a great number of people for further research, and even lists multiple
sources about each one!
Research
as indicated above. Perform a
monologue AS that person for the class, and tell 'your' story from a
first-person perspective.
On our trip to the Freedom Center, you will work with a group, and each of you will take a notecard and pencil with you. On your notecard, please write:
If I could ask only one question, it would be...
What would you like to find out more information about while at the Freedom Center?
While there, find the answer to your own question, and feel free to help your group find out the answers to theirs by looking at displays, reading placards and posters, or asking guides. On your notecard, you may also jot down other facts that interest you.