Two Highways

Goals:

1. To have students relate life on Lanai to life in Green Bay in terms of transportation and water use.

2. To develop critical thinking skills relating to how they get from place to place every day.

Resources/Materials:

1. At least eight copies of a map of Lanai from page 322 in Birnbaum's 95 Hawaii by Alexandra Mayes Birnbaum (1994). New York, N.Y.: HarperCollins Publishers (ISBN 0-06-278165-0)

2. At least eight copies of a map of Green Bay (or whichever city you live in). It can be taken either from a phone book or from the city's visitor office.

3. Posterboard and colored pencils.

4. Student evaluation sheets.

Time:

This lesson should take about 1.5 hours.

Procedure:

1. Separate students into groups of three.

2. Hand out Lanai maps.

3. Discuss transportation on Lanai, considering they have only two main roads. In discussion, develop why Lanai has just two roads and factors that could produce change. What role does the ocean play for residents of Lanai?

4. Discuss today's transportation in Green Bay.

5. Deliver assignment: What if Green Bay had only two main roads? Where would they go? Would they be already existing streets, or would you create two different roads that currently don't exist? Students must draw on their posterboard where the two roads in Green Bay would go and why they chose them. Also, the students must present how the use of the Fox River would change if Green Bay had just two roads.

6. Group presentations. Each group will show their solution and offer two ideas to how the use of the Fox River would change if Green Bay had just two roads. After each presentation, the other students in class will write out peer evaluations.

7. Class discussion of ideas. What do we think will work or won't work?

8. (The next day) Hand back peer evaluation forms.

Assessment:

1. Each group must turn in their poster and make a presentation. Students will be judged on depth of thinking (rubric included). (Criteria for success = 7 pts. out of 10.)

2. Provided there are eight groups, each student will turn in seven evaluation sheets. Each one should be completed and have at least one constructive statement.

Curricular strands:

1. Social studies: Evaluate transportation and movement of people and/or goods from one place to another.

2. Language arts: Students must present ideas to the class and make a persuasive argument about why their ideas will work.

Possible extensions:

1. Following up on the two-highway theme, design new modes of transportation that would be used. How would we transport goods from one side of the river to another? This can be done either by discussion, written work or artistic drawing.

Go to Exploring Lanai

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