Ancient China lesson plan
TITLE:
Ancient China dynasties
GOALS and STANDARDS:
Attached
21st CENTURY SKILLS:
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Critical Thinking
- Communication
- Self-direction
- Students reason critically
- Students communicate effectively
- Students produce quality work
- Students collaborate effectively
- Students think creatively
- AFFECTIVE ESLRs:
- Integrity & responsibility
- Respect for other cultures
- Adaptability in transitions
- Continuous learning
Artifact planning form
Ancient China banner
Ancient China artifact and website
TECHNOLOGY TOOLS:
Google docs
Sound cloud
Google maps
Weebly
LEARNING ACTIVITY:
(use Understanding by Design)
This unit is a four week unit surrounding two essential questions:
How do historians know about what happened in the past?
What events and turning points are important in history and why?
The students were grouped into six different dynasties in China. The dynasties include: Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing, Tang and Han. The dynasties were chosen based on the book China, Land of Dragons and Emperors by Adeline Yen Mah. Each group consisted of 3 -4 students.
With various resources, the student begin to dive into the information about their particular dynasty. They were required to identify specific turning points in history that occurred during that time period. Which events are important? What type of inventions came from that dynasty. From there, the students complete a banner project. (See Ancient China banner under assessments)
Once the banners are complete, we move on to talking about the role of archeologists. How do we know about what happened in the past? Through a somewhat cheesy, yet informative video with Arizona Smith (an archeologist) we learn about various artifacts and their importance. The students are then paired with a different partner (making sure that we blend two separate dynasties to work together) The students begin to identify the MOST important turning point from those two periods of time. (See Artifact Planning Sheet under assessments)
Once they have identified one turning point they continue to brainstorm TWO different artifacts that could have been found that would point to that specific invention or important event in history. With various materials, they begin to construct two realistic artifacts by hand. (See Ancient China artifact and website under assessment)
The final portion of the project involves taking the information and creating a museum exhibit. The students are asked to create an interactive Google map where they locate where the artifacts might have been found and any other important information about the turning point from the China dynasty. Along with the interactive map, they need to create a video recording on Sound Cloud (a tutorial was provided by our Tech integration specialist, Nathan Walker). The voice recording must be uploaded and embedded along with the Google map to a Weebly website. The website must include pictures that are appealing to the audience and a Works Cited tab must also appear on the webpage.
The goal of the assignment is to produce museum-worthy materials that can be on display in the classroom. On the presentation day, the rooms are set up to look like a museum with the artifacts on display next to the laptops with the museum webpage. We asked visitors to come and browse the Relyea Historical Institute and the Skidmore Heritage Center. Since there were audio recordings, we asked everyone to bring earbuds or headphones and to sit at each exhibit and experience a realistic museum vibe.
STUDENT SAMPLES:
Foot binding exhibit
Block Printing
RESOURCES:
Ancient Civilizations for Children DVD
Ancient China – Schlessinger Media 23 minutes
China – Land of Dragons and Emperors
History of Ancient China
South and East Asia and the Pacific
Tech integration specialist - Nathan Walker
Archeology links