Focus: Students will learn about analysis of primary sources--photos, maps, and documents through researching a local water project and its development--authorization, engineering, and funding for the project, and impacts of the project on the regions. This will help students learn about abstract historical concepts, expose them to multiple perspectives, help to personalize the past, and prompt students to question the past, interpret evidence, make reasoned inferences, and to shape informed opinions of their own.

Grade level : Grades 11-12

Standards assessed:

Information Literacy Standard 1: The student who is information literate accesses information efficiently and effectively.

• Recognizes the need for information
• Formulates questions based on information needs
• Identifies a variety of potential sources of information.
• Develops and uses successful strategies for locating information.

Information Literacy Standard 2: The student who is information literate evaluates information critically and competently.

• Determines accuracy, relevance and comprehensiveness.
• Distinguishes among facts, point of view, and opinion.
• Identifies inaccurate and misleading information.
• Selects information appropriate to the problem or question at hand.

Information Literacy Standard 3: The student who is information literature uses information accurately and creatively.

• Organizes information for practical application.
• Integrates new information into one's own knowledge.
• Applies information in critical thinking and problem solving.
• Produces and communicates information and ideas in appropriate formats.

Outcomes and assessment: Final assessment will consist of analysis of a photo, map, or document previously unseen by the student, using the appropriate Primary Source Analysis Aid.

Outcomes:

• The student will be able to, when presented a primary source, and using the appropriate Primary Source Analysis aid, formulate 2-4 questions based on information needs, identify 2-3 potential sources of information, and develop and use a strategy for locating information.
• The student will be able to, when presented a primary source, apply critical thinking skills and problem solving skills in analyzing the source, and produce and share his/her theories (2-4) about the primary source item.
  
  

Other Assessments:

This type of work lends itself to formative assessments of the processes involved, through repeated work with different primary sources.

This work could be subjectively assessed through observation of the production of a variety of projects:

• Write an essay about a primary source document, explaining how the source supports or challenges a commonly accepted conclusion about the Grand Ditch;
• Based on an analysis of several primary sources, prepare an oral presentation taking a stand on the construction of the Grand Ditch;
• Select primary source documents to create a museum display about the Grand Ditch. Write captions for the items and justify the documents that are selected;
• Write a response--speech, news article, sermon--to a primary source, taking the position of someone who lived at the time of Ditch construction;
• Prepare a visual display (poster, magazine cover, illustrated timeline) that highlights the most important points to be gained from the primary sources under study.

Standards addressed:

History Standard 2: Students know how to use the processes and resources of historical inquiry.

History Standard 4: Students understand how science, technology and economic activity have developed, changed, and affected societies throughout history.

Reading and Writing Standard 1: Students read and understand a variety of materials.

Reading and Writing Standard 4: Students apply thinking skills to their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing.

Reading and Writing Standard 5: Students read to locate, select, and make use of relevant information from a variety of media, reference, and technological sources.

Time: at least 6 45 minutes lesson periods, though each topic--photos, text, and maps--could be covered independent of the others, in 1-2 lesson periods.

Materials:

• access to computer lab with Internet access (or in its absence, teacher access to the Internet, multimedia projector, and printer);
• access to library media center for research;
• black or white board or flip chart to keep record of discussion points;
• copies of some period photos from Grand and Larimer Counties, available from Heritage Colorado database and through Grand County Historical Association;
• copies of some primary source information related to Grand County or Larimer County, accessible from websites and books listed in the Procedures;
• copies of some of the documents from the Colorado Virtual Library, Ft. Collins Public Library , or Rocky Mounatin National Park, concerning the Grand Ditch;
• photos of the Grand Ditch project, available from Heritage Colorado database, Grand County Historical Association, and Ft. Collins Public Library; and
• a variety of historical and current maps of the area.

Websites--Teacher and students will use the following sites. They should be bookmarked or otherwise organized for ready access. The teacher will use these sites to prepare handouts of materials; students and teacher will access them during the activities.

The teacher should become familiar with these sites, their organization, content, and potential use.

Heritage Colorado
American Memory
Colorado Virtual Library
HABS/HAER
Mountain Lake view
National Register of Historic Places
Remote Sensing
Rocky Mountain Virtual Tour
Rocky Mountain National Park
USGS Earth Explorer

Book and document resources--See the Pathfinder/Research Aid