Native Americans and the English
Grade Level: 4
Time Needed: 60 minutes
Unit Essential Question: In early Jamestown, how did choices affect people’s lives?
Lesson Essential Questions: How did a drought affect choices made in Jamestown? How did choices Powhatan made during the “Starving Time” affect the survival of the Native Americans and colonists?
Virginia Standards:
Social Studies
VS.1 The student will demonstrate skills for historical and geographical analysis and responsible citizenship, including the ability to
b) determine cause-and-effect relationships;
d) draw conclusions and make generalizations;
e) make connections between past and present;
g) interpret ideas and events from different historical perspectives;
h) evaluate and discuss issues orally and in writing;
VS.2 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the physical geography and native peoples, past and present, of Virginia by
f) describing how archaeologists have recovered new material evidence at sites including Werowocomoco and Jamestown;
VS.3 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the first permanent English settlement in America by
f) describing the hardships faced by settlers at Jamestown and the changes that took place to ensure survival;
g) describing the interactions between the English settlers and the native peoples, including the contributions of Powhatan to the survival of the settlers.
English:
4.1 The student will use effective oral communication skills in a variety of settings.
b) Contribute to group discussions.
c) Seek ideas and opinions of others.
d) Use evidence to support opinions.
e) Use grammatically correct language and specific vocabulary to communicate ideas.
Science:
4.4 The student will investigate and understand basic plant anatomy and life processes. Key concepts include
a) the structures of typical plants (leaves, stems, roots, and flowers);
c) photosynthesis (sunlight, chlorophyll, water, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and sugar); and
4.8 The student will investigate and understand important Virginia natural resources. Key concepts include
a) animals and plants;
NCSS Standards:
I. Culture
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of culture and cultural diversity, so that the learner can
d. compare ways in which people from different cultures think about and deal with their physical environ-ment and social conditions;
e. give examples and describe the importance of cultural unity and diversity within and across groups.
III, People, Places, & Environments
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of people, places, and environments, so that the learner can:
h. examine the interaction of human beings and their physical environment, the use of land, building of cities, and ecosystem changes in selected locales and regions;
j. observe and speculate about social and economic effects of environmental changes and crises resulting from phenomena such as floods, storms, and drought;
V. Individuals, Groups, & Institutions
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of interactions among individuals, groups, and institutions, so that the learner can:
d. identify and describe examples of tensions between and among individuals, groups, or institu-tions, and how belonging to more than one group can cause internal conflicts;
Materials Needed:
Goals/Objectives:
Activities/Instruction:
1. Hold up a photograph of a tree stump (like the one below, taken from this website) with obvious rings. Ask students what it is (take answers).
_
Time Needed: 60 minutes
Unit Essential Question: In early Jamestown, how did choices affect people’s lives?
Lesson Essential Questions: How did a drought affect choices made in Jamestown? How did choices Powhatan made during the “Starving Time” affect the survival of the Native Americans and colonists?
Virginia Standards:
Social Studies
VS.1 The student will demonstrate skills for historical and geographical analysis and responsible citizenship, including the ability to
b) determine cause-and-effect relationships;
d) draw conclusions and make generalizations;
e) make connections between past and present;
g) interpret ideas and events from different historical perspectives;
h) evaluate and discuss issues orally and in writing;
VS.2 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the physical geography and native peoples, past and present, of Virginia by
f) describing how archaeologists have recovered new material evidence at sites including Werowocomoco and Jamestown;
VS.3 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the first permanent English settlement in America by
f) describing the hardships faced by settlers at Jamestown and the changes that took place to ensure survival;
g) describing the interactions between the English settlers and the native peoples, including the contributions of Powhatan to the survival of the settlers.
English:
4.1 The student will use effective oral communication skills in a variety of settings.
b) Contribute to group discussions.
c) Seek ideas and opinions of others.
d) Use evidence to support opinions.
e) Use grammatically correct language and specific vocabulary to communicate ideas.
Science:
4.4 The student will investigate and understand basic plant anatomy and life processes. Key concepts include
a) the structures of typical plants (leaves, stems, roots, and flowers);
c) photosynthesis (sunlight, chlorophyll, water, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and sugar); and
4.8 The student will investigate and understand important Virginia natural resources. Key concepts include
a) animals and plants;
NCSS Standards:
I. Culture
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of culture and cultural diversity, so that the learner can
d. compare ways in which people from different cultures think about and deal with their physical environ-ment and social conditions;
e. give examples and describe the importance of cultural unity and diversity within and across groups.
III, People, Places, & Environments
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of people, places, and environments, so that the learner can:
h. examine the interaction of human beings and their physical environment, the use of land, building of cities, and ecosystem changes in selected locales and regions;
j. observe and speculate about social and economic effects of environmental changes and crises resulting from phenomena such as floods, storms, and drought;
V. Individuals, Groups, & Institutions
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of interactions among individuals, groups, and institutions, so that the learner can:
d. identify and describe examples of tensions between and among individuals, groups, or institu-tions, and how belonging to more than one group can cause internal conflicts;
Materials Needed:
- Access to internet
- Smart Board or white board
- Picture of tree stump/tree rings
- Copy of each of the worksheets, one of each per student
- Marker
- Computer
- Projector
- Cause/effect chart
- Marker
Goals/Objectives:
- Students will be able to use concepts learned about tree rings to analyze a tree ring cross section and see that a drought occurred int he early days of the Jamestown settlement
- Students will express understanding that Powhatan chose to stop trading with the settlers through a letter written from his perspective, talking about possible motives and reasons for doing so in their letter
Activities/Instruction:
1. Hold up a photograph of a tree stump (like the one below, taken from this website) with obvious rings. Ask students what it is (take answers).
_
_
Then hold up a picture of the Native Americans and the English, like the one at the top of this lesson page, which can be found here. Tell students today they are going to act as science detectives to find out what these two seemingly unrelated items have to do with each other.
2. On the Smart Board (or if using a white board, you'll need to post a large picture), display the picture of the tree stump. Ask if any students know what the name is of the little concentric circles inside of the tree stump. Share the term "tree ring" if no one knows it. Tell the students that on the inside of tree trunks, which are really just large stems, there are lots of layers of circles that make up these tree rings. Ask students if anyone can share what the stems of trees do (hold up the tree, transfer and store "plant food" (nutrients and water) throughout the tree, allow the leaves to absorb the sun so photosynthesis can occur).
Tell the students that the first year the tree grows a small stem (draw a circle on the board). Then, the next year an additional layer wood grows over top of the first layer (draw another circle around the first to make a ring). Then, each year after that, the tree grows another layer over the last one (draw rings around the circles to show additional layers). What do these circles look like? (Rings, hence the name "tree rings) If trees grow a new ring every year, what is one thing that we can tell from the rings? (How old the tree is)
3. Tell the students they are now going to assume the role of Dendrochronologist (have students repeat that word a couple times). What do you think a Dendrochronologist is? It is a scientist who studies the rings of trees.
4. Hand out a copy of the tree ring sheet (at the bottom of this page) to each student (even better if you can make one large poster size print for groups of 4 to 6 students to study together). Let the students study the sheet for several minutes and talk to one another about what they see and what they are curious about.
5. Ask students: Are all of the rings the same size? (No) Why do you think they are different sizes? Take hypotheses and write them on the board.
Ask students what they know about how plants grow? They grow through photosynthesis (sunlight, chlorophyll, water, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and sugar). What happens to a plant if it doesn't have enough water? (It doesn't grow very fast or at all) What happens if it gets enough water? (It grows faster) How might you apply this information to tree rings? What might happen to the growth of a tree if there is a lot of rain one year? What might happen if there was not a lot of rain, also called a drought?
Have children look back at the tree ring and see if they can find any examples of parts where there might have been a lot of rain and parts where there might have been droughts.
6. Tell students that in Jamestown, scientists drilled into trees and took out a cross section of the trees to see the layers of the tree rings (show by drawing two heavy black lines on the image of the tree rings on the Smart Board (or cut through a printout of the image and show kids the thin strip). Show how the lines still show the rings, but are in a line rather than in a circle.
7. Hand out the "Cross section" worksheet to the students. Explain that they are holding a picture of one of the tree ring cross sections from Jamestown. Point out the section from the early years of the Jamestown settlement and have the students write what they think the image shows about the weather in Jamestown in that time.
8. After the students have worked on their worksheet for about 10 minutes, have a class discussion about how the tree rings show that Jamestown went through a major drought during the first years of the settlement. Ask students what they think this meant for the people living in Virginia at that time. They should answer that it probably meant that they weren't able to grow as much food and it likely led to hunger.
Remind students that the settlers were relying a lot on the Native Americans for food. Tell students about how John Smith had helped maintain a trading relationship with Powhatan and the Native Americans but when he was injured in a gunpowder accident, he had to go back to England. Powhatan and his people helped the settlers by teaching them to find food and plant tobacco and corn. After that, the relationship between the Native Americans and colonists became very tense. Because there was a drought going on and relations between the two groups were already tense, the Native Americans stopped trading with the colonists.
Explain that in the winter of 1609-1610, the settlers had almost no food and became desperate. They chose to try to steal from the Native Americans instead of fishing or hunting but their plan didn't work. Powhatan, the Native American leader, sent some of his people to stand guard outside of the Jamestown Fort so the settlers couldn't leave. There are many theories as to why he did this: some believe that he wanted to make sure that his own people would have enough food and didn't have enough to spare for the settlers, some think he was trying to starve the settlers to death because he realized that they were not planning on leaving and were taking over the land. Some accounts say that he even had the livestock belonging to the settlers slaughtered so they couldn't eat it.
This choice caused many of the remaining settlers to die because they couldn't leave the settlement to find food or get firewood. They resorted to eating their boots, horses, rats, cats, dogs, and some even killed and ate other people or dug up the dead from their graves and ate them. At the end of the winter, only about 60 people were alive in the settlement out of about 500 settlers that had come to the colony.
9. Using the projector, show video clip "Video Clip A" about the tree rings in Jamestown for more understanding. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previous_seasons/lessons/lp_jamestown_videos.html
10. Add these choice to the cause/effect chart-settlers chose to steal food from Native Americans/worsened relations with the Native Americans and then were placed under siege and many starved -AND- Powhatan chose to keep the settlers from leaving their fort and stopped trading/more food for his people and many settlers died.
11. Have the students write a letter from the perspective of Powhatan about why he chose to keep the settlers locked in their camp. The students should also write a separate paragraph after the letter about whether they think that the Native Americans should have let the settlers starve and why or why not.
Assessment:
The teacher will read the journals to see if the students understood the how the drought affected choices that the Native Americans made. Students will be graded on depth of thought and effort as well as grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure.
Then hold up a picture of the Native Americans and the English, like the one at the top of this lesson page, which can be found here. Tell students today they are going to act as science detectives to find out what these two seemingly unrelated items have to do with each other.
2. On the Smart Board (or if using a white board, you'll need to post a large picture), display the picture of the tree stump. Ask if any students know what the name is of the little concentric circles inside of the tree stump. Share the term "tree ring" if no one knows it. Tell the students that on the inside of tree trunks, which are really just large stems, there are lots of layers of circles that make up these tree rings. Ask students if anyone can share what the stems of trees do (hold up the tree, transfer and store "plant food" (nutrients and water) throughout the tree, allow the leaves to absorb the sun so photosynthesis can occur).
Tell the students that the first year the tree grows a small stem (draw a circle on the board). Then, the next year an additional layer wood grows over top of the first layer (draw another circle around the first to make a ring). Then, each year after that, the tree grows another layer over the last one (draw rings around the circles to show additional layers). What do these circles look like? (Rings, hence the name "tree rings) If trees grow a new ring every year, what is one thing that we can tell from the rings? (How old the tree is)
3. Tell the students they are now going to assume the role of Dendrochronologist (have students repeat that word a couple times). What do you think a Dendrochronologist is? It is a scientist who studies the rings of trees.
4. Hand out a copy of the tree ring sheet (at the bottom of this page) to each student (even better if you can make one large poster size print for groups of 4 to 6 students to study together). Let the students study the sheet for several minutes and talk to one another about what they see and what they are curious about.
5. Ask students: Are all of the rings the same size? (No) Why do you think they are different sizes? Take hypotheses and write them on the board.
Ask students what they know about how plants grow? They grow through photosynthesis (sunlight, chlorophyll, water, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and sugar). What happens to a plant if it doesn't have enough water? (It doesn't grow very fast or at all) What happens if it gets enough water? (It grows faster) How might you apply this information to tree rings? What might happen to the growth of a tree if there is a lot of rain one year? What might happen if there was not a lot of rain, also called a drought?
Have children look back at the tree ring and see if they can find any examples of parts where there might have been a lot of rain and parts where there might have been droughts.
6. Tell students that in Jamestown, scientists drilled into trees and took out a cross section of the trees to see the layers of the tree rings (show by drawing two heavy black lines on the image of the tree rings on the Smart Board (or cut through a printout of the image and show kids the thin strip). Show how the lines still show the rings, but are in a line rather than in a circle.
7. Hand out the "Cross section" worksheet to the students. Explain that they are holding a picture of one of the tree ring cross sections from Jamestown. Point out the section from the early years of the Jamestown settlement and have the students write what they think the image shows about the weather in Jamestown in that time.
8. After the students have worked on their worksheet for about 10 minutes, have a class discussion about how the tree rings show that Jamestown went through a major drought during the first years of the settlement. Ask students what they think this meant for the people living in Virginia at that time. They should answer that it probably meant that they weren't able to grow as much food and it likely led to hunger.
Remind students that the settlers were relying a lot on the Native Americans for food. Tell students about how John Smith had helped maintain a trading relationship with Powhatan and the Native Americans but when he was injured in a gunpowder accident, he had to go back to England. Powhatan and his people helped the settlers by teaching them to find food and plant tobacco and corn. After that, the relationship between the Native Americans and colonists became very tense. Because there was a drought going on and relations between the two groups were already tense, the Native Americans stopped trading with the colonists.
Explain that in the winter of 1609-1610, the settlers had almost no food and became desperate. They chose to try to steal from the Native Americans instead of fishing or hunting but their plan didn't work. Powhatan, the Native American leader, sent some of his people to stand guard outside of the Jamestown Fort so the settlers couldn't leave. There are many theories as to why he did this: some believe that he wanted to make sure that his own people would have enough food and didn't have enough to spare for the settlers, some think he was trying to starve the settlers to death because he realized that they were not planning on leaving and were taking over the land. Some accounts say that he even had the livestock belonging to the settlers slaughtered so they couldn't eat it.
This choice caused many of the remaining settlers to die because they couldn't leave the settlement to find food or get firewood. They resorted to eating their boots, horses, rats, cats, dogs, and some even killed and ate other people or dug up the dead from their graves and ate them. At the end of the winter, only about 60 people were alive in the settlement out of about 500 settlers that had come to the colony.
9. Using the projector, show video clip "Video Clip A" about the tree rings in Jamestown for more understanding. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previous_seasons/lessons/lp_jamestown_videos.html
10. Add these choice to the cause/effect chart-settlers chose to steal food from Native Americans/worsened relations with the Native Americans and then were placed under siege and many starved -AND- Powhatan chose to keep the settlers from leaving their fort and stopped trading/more food for his people and many settlers died.
11. Have the students write a letter from the perspective of Powhatan about why he chose to keep the settlers locked in their camp. The students should also write a separate paragraph after the letter about whether they think that the Native Americans should have let the settlers starve and why or why not.
Assessment:
The teacher will read the journals to see if the students understood the how the drought affected choices that the Native Americans made. Students will be graded on depth of thought and effort as well as grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure.
tree_ring_picture.pdf | |
File Size: | 210 kb |
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cross_section_of_tree_ring_from_jamestown.pdf | |
File Size: | 123 kb |
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