2012-2013 Lesson Plan for Henrico 21 Awards
Lesson Title: Water, Water, Water!
Target Grade/Subject: 9th/World History
Length: 50 minutes
Summary:
Students will assume the role of historical researchers, working in collaborative groups of two or
three, for Tyson University@ The Academy of Virginia Randolph. It is the year 2099 and due to
a series of accidents America is facing a fresh water crisis and is lacking engineering resources
to aid communities which are some distance from rivers. The historical researchers have been
given the task of reviewing the aqueduct systems used in Ancient Rome to determine if this
ancient technology could be used to improve the availability of fresh water. Researchers will
prepare an electronic presentation that explains how aqueducts aided Ancient Rome.
Essential questions:
How did the creation of aqueducts influence the development of Ancient Rome?
Can the technology of the Ancient Roman aqueducts be used in modern America?
Lesson Development:
Students have been studying the government, society and technological advancements of
Ancient Rome.
 Teacher will present the water crisis scenario to the students.
 Students will select the members of their cooperative research group to complete
historical research.
 Cooperative research groups will determine the tool they will use to gather research
(Google Docs, Prezi, Microsoft Word, or pen and paper).
 Cooperative research groups will generate a list of questions about Roman aqueducts to
guide research and will assign members answer specific questions.
 Cooperative groups will use Easybib to create citations to document research sources.
 Cooperative groups will discuss and choose a presentation tool (Google Docs
Presentation, Prezi, Spaaze, or Voicethread).
 Cooperative groups will discuss research results to determine which information will be
posted to the presentation tool.
 Cooperative groups will add research results to electronic presentation tool.
Assessment
Cooperative groups will assess the presentations of other cooperative groups (within the class).



Does the presentation explain the creation of Ancient Roman aqueducts?
Does the presentation identify the uses of Ancient Roman aqueducts?
In what ways does the presentation tool address the issue of moving water across large
distances?
TIP Chart Assessment:
Categories:
Research and Information Fluency: Approaching
After being presented with the task of researching the ancient Roman aqueducts to determine if
they would be able to provide fresh water to their community, students formed research groups
and decided which digital tools they would use. Students were able to select one of the digital
tools they’d previously used in class. Students used the digital tool to communicate and
document researched information.
Communication and Collaboration: Developing
After being presented with the task of researching the ancient Roman aqueducts to determine if they
would be able to provide fresh water to their community, students formed research groups and decided
which digital tools they would use. Students selected one of the digital tools they had previously used in
class. Students had to assign each other tasks to research and substantiating information about the
aqueducts. Students used the digital tool to communicate and document researched information. Once
they finished their documentation, they read over their information, checking to make sure they had
answered their questions and provided images.
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Approaching
After being presented with their task, student cooperative groups created questions that they
used to help drive their research. There were times that they found that they had to delve
deeper and change their questioning in order to arrive at the information that they need. Finally,
the collaborative groups discussed the validity of the questions created to determine which
questions would be used in the presentation.
Creativity and Innovation: Developing
Students discussed the benefits and challenges of the different software programs they could
use to create their presentation. They decided to use Spaaze in this presentation because it
allowed them to research and document their information with the same digital tool. The
students used the notebook entry to document the questions, answers, and citations. The
students also added video and images to help provide visual information.
Water, Water, Water!
Teacher Name: World History
Student Name:
________________________________________
CATEGORY
Graphics Sources
4
Graphics help
illustrate the point
of the slide. The
illustrator(s) are
given credit
somewhere in the
presentation.
3
Graphics
somewhat
illustrate the point
f the slide. Sources
are documented in
the presentation
for all images.
2
Some graphics are
from sources that
clearly state that
non-commercial
use is allowed
without written
permission.
Sources are
documented in the
presentation for all
\"borrowed\"
images.
1
Some graphics are
borrowed from
sites that do not
have copyright
statements or do
not state that noncommercial use is
allowed, OR
sources are not
documented for all
images.
Content - Accuracy
All content
throughout the
presentation is
accurate. There are
no factual errors.
The content is
generally accurate,
but one piece of
information is
clearly flawed or
inaccurate.
Content is typically
confusing or
contains more than
one factual error.
Text - Font Choice
& Formatting
Font formats (e.g.,
color, bold, italic)
have been
carefully planned
to enhance
readability and
content.
Most of the
content is accurate
but there is one
piece of
information that
might be
inaccurate.
Font formats have
been carefully
planned to
enhance
readability.
Font formatting
has been carefully
planned to
complement the
content. It may be
a little hard to
read.
Font formatting
makes it very
difficult to read the
material.
Spelling and
Grammar
Presentation has
no misspellings or
grammatical
errors.
Presentation has 12 misspellings, but
no grammatical
errors.
Presentation has 12 grammatical
errors but no
misspellings.
Presentation has
more than 2
grammatical
and/or spelling
errors.