Dr Livingstone, I presume?

Social Studies Online

TEACHER Anne Girven

The aim of this unit is for the students to develop information research study skills through shared, guided and independent reading programmes - gathering and ordering information, question setting, resource selection, skim reading, note taking, summarising, and use of electronic resources, eg. CD ROM/Internet.

For more information, see:

• Gwen Gawith - Action Learning (Longman Paul 1988).
• Big Six Approach to Information Problem Solving Approach - Information Skills

TEACHING AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Select and adapt these learning activities to best meet the needs of your students, and to fit the time available:

• Introduction
  Focus questions:
  • Why do you think groups of people, for example explorers, have undertaken journeys to new places and have recorded their ideas/experiences?
  • What do you think the different reasons might be for finding out about new places?
  • How do people find out about new places and environments?
  • What are the challenges these people may have had to experience?
  • What challenges have you faced? When? Who else was involved? What feelings or emotions did you experience?

  Students work in groups, brainstorm ideas and report back to class. Use drama to act out their challenges, emotions and experiences.

• Shared Reading
  Read Expedition up the Ganga River, a series of three articles describing Sir Edmund Hillary's "Ocean to Sky" expedition. (There is a wide range of articles in the Challenges section of the School Journal Catalogue.)

  Model the kinds of questions the students will focus on, eg.

  • Why did Sir Edmund Hillary decide to explore this place?
  • How? What problems/challenges did he have to face?

  List/note the main points from the text.

  Model skimming and scanning, note taking and summarising of information.

  Focus on the processes involved in accessing and using information. What might you need to think about as you read?

  Students write a fact file of main points from the article. Discuss and share their facts in small groups.

• Introduce David Livingstone
  Who was David Livingstone? Who was H.M.Stanley? List responses. Either read or view a small extract about David Livingstone (keep content brief).
  • Famous Scots - David Livingstone
  • David Livingstone - Man of Africa
  • Livingstone Discovers Victoria Falls, 1855

  Record: What have we found out about Dr Livingstone?

• Independent Student Learning
  In eight groups, research David Livingstone using the World Wide Web. Each group will have 1-2, 30 minute sessions collecting information from the sites listed for their group. The aim is for students, using who, what, where, when, why, how questions and working in small groups, to skim-read, take notes and summarise the information to give feedback to the class. Students to use a time line to record information. Each group will put their time line on a class wall chart "This is Your Life David Livingstone".
  • Group 1
    Road to Africa 1813-1840

  • Group 2
    Southern Africa 1841-1853

  • Group3
    Trans-Africa 1853-1856

  • Group 4
    Trans-Africa 1853-1856

  • Group 5
    Lake Nyasa Area 1858-1863

  • Group 6
    The Last Journey 1866-1873

  • Group 7
    The Last Journey 1866-1873

  • Group 8
    (Places David Livingstone explored/travelled/discovered) Victoria Falls

  As a result of their reading and research students will write a diary/log - "A week in the life of Dr Livingstone". Teacher models the process of drafting, editing and proofreading.

• Thinking Critically About Research
  Mini Inquiry Template
  

  The class brainstorms explorers suitable for research, the names being recorded as they discuss them. During this phase the teacher acts as an arbiter to ensure that the suggestions serve the purpose of the unit. The final list will be no more than five or six names. The students decide on the explorer they want to research.

  The focus will be how and why people find out about places and environments and the challenges they face.

  Groups then decide upon three or four key questions they want answered, based on the explorer, the expedition and the challenges faced. The students will conference with the teacher to ensure that the questions are not so specific or closed that the research process is invalidated or so broad as to be unmanageable.

  Once research questions are in place, the class is introduced, through teacher modelling, to the methods of research each group must use to find answers to their questions.

  In each group of three:

  • one member must use a book, article, tape or video, or an email or fax to an expert/institution.
  • one member must use the World Wide Web.
  • one member is responsible for collating and organising the presentation to the class.
  OR

  The group will be exposed to both methods; each group member will take responsibility for one question and use both methods for that question. Students conduct their research individually in their own time and in class. (Teachers may wish to bookmark the selected explorers).

  Back in groups, with teacher modelling and support, students compare the answers they each got to their question(s).

  Students then report back to the class explaining:

  • their research topic and questions.
  • a brief summary of the answers to their questions - this information is to be presented using one form of recording eg. PowerPoint, OHT, timeline, flow chart, fact file.

• Extension Activity
  As a group, evaluate all sources by checking the Resource Evaluation Checklist. Comment on which sources scored high and which scored low on the Resource Evaluation Checklist, along with any generalisations they are able to make about the sources of information.

• Learning Centre Activities:
  
  1. Find and map David Livingstone's birth place, Blantyre, Glasgow, Scotland.

  2. Research cotton mills in Scotland in the 1770 and 1800s. Who worked in these mills? Where did the cotton come from?

  3. Map places of interest in Africa that David Livingstone visited during his travels.

  4. With a friend write and dramatise the events leading up to the meeting of David Livingstone and H.M. Stanley.

  5. Write a cartoon story of the meeting between David Livingstone and H.M. Stanley. Use speech bubbles or Kid Pix.

  6. Research the "dreaded malaria" that was prevalent during the 1700s and 1800s. What were the causes? What where the symptoms? What medication was used? What did scientists do to try to eradicate the disease?

  7. Research the "slave trade". Who was involved? When was it abolished?

  Additional WWW resources for those students who want to "find out more". These sites could be bookmarked for student use.

  • Forbidden Territory-Stanley and Livingstone plus 40 photographs
  • What is Malaria?
  • Sir Stanley Morton
  • History of Slavery

ASSESSMENT

Assessment Task
Explain to the students the assessment indicators for this task. Groups then decide upon three or four key questions they want answered:

• How and why people find out about places.
• The reasons people have for these expeditions.
• The challenges/problem faced.

Self Assessment
Assessment Schedule

RESOURCES

Electronic
These sites could be bookmarked for student use.

• Traits of Explorers
  
• Thinkquest: Explorers of the Millennium