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Great Lakes connections to Underground Railroad – Black History Month
Free Curriculum for Middle and High School Educators
Learn about Freedom Seekers and the Underground Railroad
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Students research, discuss and debate views on Great Lakes water withdrawals and exportation by taking different roles in the issue.
Investigating multiple hypotheses, students discuss the values of using several data types and sources to
solve a science problem, demonstrate how bathymetric charts are used and constructed, demonstrate how weather information is mapped and interpreted, and explain how scientists use multiple working
hypotheses to solve complex problems.
Students analyze song lyrics and articles to learn about a famous shipwreck.
This activity introduces students to one tribe of early Great Lakes settlers, the Ojibway (Chippewa), who began to migrate from what would later become New Brunswick and Maine in 900 A.D.
These lesson plans are intended to integrate an understanding of the geologic processes that resulted in the formation of the Great Lakeswith lock technology that was developed to optimize the Great Lakes as a transportation waterway. The primary focus of the unit is to address technology as defined by the DOE as, ” The innovation, change, or modification of the natural environment to satisfy perceived human needs and wants.”
Your class should first study the locations of missing craft and personnel in the activity titled, “What is the Great Lakes Triangle?” Like scientists, you should examine the data for trends and indicators; in this case you examine concentrations of the disappearances and speculate on their causes. The present investigation is actually three activities that are to be performed by different classroom groups simultaneously through cooperative learning. If time permits, all three activities could be done by the entire class.
The activities treat the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald as example of a Great Lakes Triangle tragedy. When all three topics have been considered, there will be a discussion to consider whether the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was an accident resulting from natural causes or whether other supernatural or extraterrestrial forces might be at work (as proposed in Berlitz’ The Bermuda Triangle).