The American Precision Museum in Windsor Vermont has launched a traveling education kit about the Industrial Revolution in northern New England. Designed for grades 7-12, the kit is keyed to NH and VT standards and includes artifacts, photos, primary source documents, activities, books, CD’s a video, and lesson plans. The four modules each contain a teachers guide and focus on an essential question. The modules are I – Background: 1750 – 1850; II - Invention and Technology; III - Life and Labor, and IV - Legacy & Impact (for advanced students & high school).The kit will help challenge your students to study the world around them, to discover how innovation and hard work transformed a farm and forest-based economy into a world of factories, machines, and mass-produced consumer goods. Much of this transformation originated in New England, in towns and villages where you can still see the evidence of early factories and mills, and where you can study local community records to find out what life was like during early years of industrialization.
The kit is available for a three-week rental period and costs $40.00, which includes shipment to your school. Your school is responsible for return shipping costs. The rental fee is $30.00 if you pick the kit up in person from the museum.
The kit is a great way to prepare for a visit to the museum, where they offer three activities your students can do in small groups: The Windsor in the 1860s Quest, a walk around the museum’s historic neighborhood; guided exploration of the exhibit Muskets to Motorcars; Yankee Ingenuity and the Road to Mass Production; and demonstrations at their working machine shop, seasonally staffed by high school interns.
The museum exhibits are open to the public May 23 through October 31, 2009. If there is sufficient interest, the museum may open during May for school groups. Please contact them for more information (see link at beginning of article).
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