Lesson 3. Drawing Conclusions: Combining Information from GIS Maps and Documents

Learning Objectives

• Students will be able to describe the advantages and limitations of GIS for understanding Westward Expansion in the early 1800s.
• Students will begin to critically analyze Westward Expansion through primary and secondary source document analysis.

Teacher Materials

• Projector connected to a lab computer

Student Materials

• Completed Handout 1
• Completed Handout 2
• Completed Handout 3
• Completed Handout 4
• Handout 5
• Handout 6
• Final assessment

Activities

1. Verify the the 4 Handouts are complete, and pass out Handout 5
2. Following Handout 5, discuss the capabilities and limitations of GIS data maps: They can answer the "who," "when," "where," and "how," but they cannot necessarily answer "what happened" and "why."
3. Introduction of Vocabulary Term: Qualitative data
   • Ask students to define quantitative data to activate prior knowledge.
   • Challenge students to define qualitative data. Explain that qualitative data are captured non-numerically. This is the type of data analysis, taken from the primary and secondary sources, that the students will be performing during this class.
4. Jigsaw Primary and Secondary Source Readings
   • Distribute Handout 6 and explain the Jigsaw reading assignment.
   • Break into groups so that each article will be covered by a student who read it. Each student will present his or her document to the group.
   • Next, the group as a whole will repond to the prompts in the written assessment. Each group can present their findings to the class.
   • NOTE: Documents are all primary sources except for Document 3.
     • For students with learning exceptionalities, you may wish to assign Document 3.
     • The letter regarding business opportunities in the West (Document 4) is particularly challenging to read and should be assigned to the stronger readers in your class.
5. Wrap-up: Bring the class together for discussion
   • The study of history is an inquiry-based process.
   • The skills they practiced in the past three lessons are skills that historians use today to answer questions about our past.
   • There are no clear answers, but the process of questioning helps us better understand where we have come from.

Homework

Each student complete the Final assessment written assignment.