Students on Site > Educators > Class Projects > Then and Now

Then and Now

Key Terms

settlement, immigration, transportation, railroad, houses, roads, rivers, trees, parks (This activity can be adapted to most of the SOS curriculum units—the key terms may change depending on which lesson you choose to pair with this activity.)

Key Tools/Documents

timeline, website, maps, documents (For example, if you are using the Early Settlement lesson, select aerial photographs or insurance maps that include detailed streetscapes.)

List of Materials

Three-dimensional maps will show one neighborhood changing over time. They should be mounted on a board or some stationary platform (teachers might try small chalkboards as the base). A variety of materials can be used to create the buildings, transportation methods, and settings.

Sample materials

• maps of one neighborhood in three specific time periods (SOS uses enlarged maps of Ann Arbor from 1850, 1910, today)
• small chalkboards
• chalk
• toothpicks
• popsicle sticks or tongue depressors
• paper cups
• cardboard
• Legos
• fabric
• twigs
• stones
• paint, pens, colored pencils
• glue
• stickers

Guiding Questions:

1. What time periods to the models reflect?
2. How can you tell?
3. What buildings would you find?
4. What different kinds of transportation did the neighborhood's residents use?
5. Who might be living in the neighborhood?
6. How is this neighborhood different or similar to the same neighborhood in an earlier or later time?
7. What natural resources exist in all three time periods? Which change?

Class Activity

• In three groups, students will plan how to represent one neighborhood in Ann Arbor in three-dimensional form as it changes over time. Teachers should distribute photographs or written descriptions about Ann Arbor and historic events from the time periods students are considering. Students should read or look at documents and think about responses to several questions:
  1. What buildings would have been in Ann Arbor? What would they look like?
  2. What kinds of transportation would you find?
  3. What activities or events might be taking place?
  4. Who would be living here?
• Students should develop a list of the buildings, people, objects, and activities they want their neighborhood to include and the materials needed to construct them; teachers can either provide materials or divide the list and ask students to bring building materials from home.
• Neighborhoods can take some time to build. Teachers may choose to set aside several full class periods, or spread the activity over several weeks, using a portion of one class period each day. Teachers may choose to enlist the help of the school's art teacher or tie this activity into "Diversity Night," "Ethnic Festival," or other related school event.

Challenge

Students should interview their parents, grandparents, or the oldest resident in their neighborhood. What did the neighborhood look like 50, 25, or 10 years ago? What has changed and how? If students could make one change to their existing neighborhood what would it be and why? Or, if they could bring back one thing that used to be in their neighborhood (i.e., streetcars, horse-drawn wagons, a special building, a park) what would it be and why?

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