Lesson Plan: Cause and Effect

Lesson Plan

Before Exploring

Ask students to brainstorm scientific discoveries. List their ideas, then ask them to tell about the consequential effect of each discovery on society or on an industry (for example, solar panels or instrumentation not requiring batteries, hence less disposable material to pollute the world). Discuss the fact that some effects can be more subtle than that, but are still effects of the initial discovery.

Outline the Opportunity

Tell students that they will be examining the development of telephone technology to find out its effects, both great and small, on society and industry. Divide the class into groups of four. Direct students to the topic Canada Says Hello: The First Century of the Telephone on the CBC Digital Archives website. One student in each group is responsible for one of the following sets of clips:

"A wondrous invention" and "Bell's daughter, a century after..."

"Telephones become a necessity..." and "Micro-wave of the future"

"Telephones go transatlantic", "No operator necessary" and "Winnipeggers call 999 for help"

"Push buttons in...", "Future phones mean more leisure", "Shopping at the tele-boutique", "Diamond Jubilee broadcast links...", "Telephone innovations of 1957", "Airplane phones keep travellers in", "Groundbreaking satellite technology...", "Disconnecting your life", and "Canada goes cellular"

Students will review the clips and read any support material, then organize their data in a chart with the following headings:

Event,

Effect on the Industry (Past),

and Current Status.

(For example, Use of microwave technology might be an event listed; effect on the industry in the past was the accessibility of long-distance calling to the masses; the current status is that microwave technology is being replaced by satellite technology.)

Revisit and Reflect

Post the charts in the classroom and invite all students to view them. Then gather as a class and invite each group to describe and explain one scientific milestone and its effect on telephone technology, and well as its resulting effect on society.

Extension

In the same groups, students can search for predictions made in each clip. They can record the prediction and then explain whether it came true. What has been the impact of those predictions that were eventually realized?