Introduction
In this section you’ll find other resources, sample lesson plans, and a listing of the Illinois Learning Standards including links between individual goals and standards and specific chapters and parts of chapters on this Website.
We deliberately divided the video into chapters that can be viewed within a class period; the entire video isn’t meant to be viewed in one sitting - it lasts nearly 2 hours. Furthermore, although the chapters build on each other, teachers may select a chapter as it fits with their course subject matter. For example, a science class might want to look at the Kankakee Torrent and then skip to the Industrial chapter; a class on Illinois archaeology or early Illinois history might use only the video chapters and text up to, or through, the Colonial and Territorial chapter. Please note that the later video chapters are basically synopses of the text chapters in the Resources section (see the signpost at the top of any page). The Resources section contains a considerable amount of additional text material as well as references and links to other sources for each video chapter. These text chapters can be used for class projects and individual or group assignments.
Video Chapter Lengths
- Torrent - 5 minutes
- Introduction - 5 minutes
- Paleoindians - 5 minutes
- Archaic - 8 minutes
- Woodland - 11 minutes
- Mississippian - 15 minutes
- Colonial and Territorial - 19 minutes
- Industrial - 12 minutes
- Mid 20th century - 12 minutes
- Modern - 10 minutes
- Secondary Impacts - 6 minutes
- Summary and Future - 7 minutes
Sample
Lesson Plans
This section includes sample lesson plans submitted by teachers who evaluated prototypes of “Of Time and the River”. They are listed by grade level, lowest grade first. Some include the ILS Descriptors and Assessments, others do not. They are included here as guides - as examples of how the website might be used for classroom assignments and student projects.
- Analyze the effect of settlements of towns on the Illinois River (Grades 5-6) - click here
- Pollution from Ground Sources (Grade 6) - click here
- Measuring Stream Gradient (Grades 7-8) - click here
- General Activities Relating to “Of Time and the River” (Grades 6-8) - click here
- Water, History, and Pollution (Grades 9-10) - click here
- Students write their own piece of water legislation (Grades 7-12) - click here
- Human Impacts on the Illinois River (Grades 9-12) - click here
- General lessons to familiarize students with the “Of Time and the River” and to utilize the interactive activities in the Games section of the Resources (Special Education) - click here
Illinois
Learning Standards
“Of Time and the River: 12,000 Years of Human Use of the Illinois River” is intended for use in grades 5-12 and is designed to meet many of the specific Illinois Learning Standards (ILS) for Science and Social Science, as of July 2006.
ILS Assessments and Descriptors for which materials from “Of Time and the River” are applicable are listed below by grade levels (stages). Please consult the ISBE Website www.isbe.net/ils for the Procedures and other specifics for each grade level (stage). Teachers are encouraged to use “Of Time and the River” for classroom assignments and for their students’ individual and group projects.
ArcVoyager
Freeware. ArcVoyager was created by ESRI’s Schools and Libraries team to go along with ArcView. It is a 50-mb package of carefully selected data, ArcView projects, and help files, in a tiered format. There are comparable Windows and Macintosh versions. The help files are written broadly to a “junior high” level, but ArcVoyager is being used effectively by elementary teachers, middle school students, high schoolers, librarians, college instructors, museum professionals, or parents. Download the software at www.esri.com/industries/k-12/education/voyager.html
Streamflow
Data
Freeware. View real-time streamflow data for Illinois from the U.S. Geological Survey, and work with this data. Visit the site at waterdata.usgs.gov/il/nwis/rt