Subject: Social Studies

Lesson Length: 40 - 45 mins

Topic: Industrial Revolution

Grade Level: 4

Standards / Framework:

Brief Description: Students will explore different inventions and innovations during the Industrial Revolution and the role these inventions had in the United States.

Know Before You Start: Students should have an understanding of the events leading up to the Industrial Revolution in America. 

Hook:

  • Have students brainstorm technology they can’t live without. 

  • Discuss technology.

    • Is technology good or bad?

    • What do you consider technology?

    • Why do people invent things?

  • Explain that tools and resources as simple as a pencil or a light switch was the newest technology at a different period in time.

Activity:

  • Introduce the following vocabulary:
    • innovation
    • invention
    • technology
    • Industrial Revolution
  • Have students research an invention that was developed during the Industrial Revolution. 

  • Using the sample comic as a guide, have students create a three-panel comic about the invention.

    • Panel 1: What is it and what is the purpose of the invention?

    • Panel 2: Who invented it and why did they invent it?

    • Panel 3: What impact, e.g., economically, politically, and/or culturally did the invention have on the United States during the Industrial Revolution?

Closure:

  • Display students’ completed comics. 

  • Have students decide what current technology evolved from these inventions from the Industrial Revolution.

Differentiation:

  • Allow students to use the speech-to-text feature.
  • Allow students to use the voiceover feature to read their comics aloud.
  • Have students create a fourth panel in the comic, or a separate comic, inventing something of their own that would help them today. 

  • Provide sentence frames as needed.

  • Have a list of inventions from which to choose.

Resources:

  • Comic to print or display: Comic.