Curriculum Area: Social Studies, Technology, and Art

Grade Level: 4th

Concept: Edith and Grace Abbott and their contributions to children and women are important for people to learn about. And because social studies promotes civic competence through the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities, and the primary purpose of social studies is to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good, it is important for them to not only learn about these two women, but to help others learn about them too. Students will create a web site honoring these two hometown heroines.

Brief Description of Lesson: Students will have the opportunity to learn about Grace and Edith Abbott, sisters that grew up in Grand Island, NE. Our city library is named after Edith and a beautiful city park is named after Grace. Students will learn about their life and the historical period in which they were children in Grand Island. Then they will learn about their accomplishments as adults.

They will also learn about the bronze busts created by local artist David Young honoring these two women and discuss why we honor people by creating artwork about them. They will also learn about thought processes involved in an artist's decisions.

Following this study, students will create a web page to honor these women and to announce the busts being dedicated this summer. This web page will be designed using ClarisHomepage. They will have the added help of John Sorensen who has studied these women extensively for more than a decade. Mr. Sorensen is coming to Grand Island from New York City, to bring images and primary source material to help guide students so that this web page will honor Grace and Edith appropriately.

Karen Keehr from the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer Photo Archives will provide primary source photos for the students to use in their webpage.

Nebraska State Curriculum Standards: standards and guidelines page

District Curriculum Objectives: curriculum objectives

Nebraska State Technology LEARNS Guidelines: LEARNS

District Technology Objectives: District Technology Objectives

Hardware Needed: camera, scanner, computers linked to internet

Computer to Student Ratio: 3 students per computer

Software Needed: word processing, picture viewer, camera software, video, clarishomepage

Amount of computer time needed: several days within a one week period of time

URLs of Sites:

Students will use search tools to find web sites of famous people in order to evaluate what we need in our web page. They will identify good characteristics of these web sites in order to have a webpage that will stand the test of time.

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Lesson Design

1. Students will view a short video clip that John Sorensen has created about the Abbott Sisters.

2. Students will write in their Reaction Logs a reaction to the video of the Abbott Sisters and what they already know about the two women. ( This helped me a starting point.)

3. After a discussion about their reactions to the video on Grace and Edith Abbott, they will learn that artist David Young has created a bronze bust of each of these women to honor them in their hometown of Grand Island.

Students will get to view these busts and hear Mr. Young talk about his artwork and why he created the busts. He will also explain his thought processes as he designed these works of art. The students will also have the chance to see the steps of creating a bronze sculpture.

These bronze busts are going to be dedicated in the summer of 2001, at our city library which is named after Edith Abbott. These ladies are heroes that people need to know about. Students will be asked, "Would you like to help create a web page to let others know about Edith and Grace Abbott and why they are heroes?"

John Sorensen is a writer/researcher in New York City, who is very interested in letting the world and especially Grand Islanders and Nebraskans know about Edith and Grace Abbott. He is going to come to Grand Island and help us design a web page to honor them.

4. Students will begin to study on-line biographies to create a list of what we need to know about Grace and Edith Abbott, as well as to note what is especially effective. Students will research the information they need about Grace and Edith, and let me know what they want Mr. Sorensen to be sure and bring with him.

John Sorensen will bring video clips, primary source information, photographs, scripts he has written, etc. to the classroom, and present the information to the class based on his research and what the student's decide they need to include. He will broaden their choices of information and help keep their scope of information appropriate.

5. Students will design on paper what they want their web page to look like, complete with the research written out in an interesting form. Mr. Sorensen and their teacher will work with them on this.

6.Students will use cooperative learning skills while creating their web page and making decisions together with Mr. Sorensen. Here you can see the group at work.

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Students will select images to support their writing and research from the archives of the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer. Karen from archives will bring archival white cotton gloves for the small group of students and the Abbott photo album as well as other photo archival information appropriate for us to use.

Karen from Stuhr with the image of Edith.

Students were very intent. We received lots of information through the images and Karen.

This is the Abbott Family Scrapbook. Notice we all used archival white gloves while we worked.

This primary source information helped us a lot. And it was thrilling to see after researching about Grace and Edith Abbott for the past two weeks.

7. Students will use their list of what was especially effective in the on-line biographies to revise and edit their Abbott Sister Webpage. Mr. Sorensen and some outside guests will view the webpage and make suggestions. Students will use this information to revise their work again.

We had help from Carol in our imaging. She was a big help! You can see her here with two of the students adding images.

8. We will post the student designed webpages on the school's WWW homepage.

Students will journal about the project and their learnings at the end of the project. I will note the changes in what they know now versus their first writings about the sisters and their lives and contributions. I will look for growth. As well, I will note what they identify as significant in this process.