Live From All the Way in England

                In order to prepare for the MOSI Live Google Hangout, we familiarized ourselves with the material that we were going to discuss during the chat.  We first were instructed to visit the MOSI,or Museum of Science & Industry, website where we read two documents that were listed beneath “Downloads.”  The first document was titled, Richard Arkwright, and the second document was called, Manchester Textile Designers.  From these sources, three key facts that I found important were that Manchester, England was a major town where textiles and mills were located, breading and weaving were techniques used in the mills, and that Arkwright built the first water-powered spinning frame in Manchester.  After investigating the Museum’s cite, we then watched a video where Jamie, the curator, who participating with us during the Live Google Hangout, showed us the main machines used in the mills and conveyed important terms to further our understanding.  We then defined all these machines and terms including the Hopper Feeder Srutcher, Carding Engine, Draw Frame, Speed Frames, Flyers, Slubbing, Roving, and Power Loom.  In addition, we further researched these new vocabulary words by using our Google keyboard search skills.  We typed in the term and other words that would help us find a more exact definition of the term.  After defining the new terms, we drafted some questions that we might ask Jamie during the Live Google Hangout.  One question that I posed was, “Would you say that the Industrial Revolution helped poorer families earn more money (because of all the new available jobs) or just made them even poorer?” 

              

  After completing the MOSI Live Google Hangout with Jamie, one thing that I learned about the textile process, as a whole, was that working in the mills was a very dangerous job and resulted in a variety of health conditions or death.  The time of industrialization was also a time of urbanization; towns and cities were popping up everywhere.  The rapid pace of industrialization with too many cities all being created at once caused England to not be able to could keep up with the explosive societal changes or deal with all the consequences of this revolutionary time.  This resulted in poor sanitation and the spread of diseases.  Diseases now spread rapidly because workers were all sharing the same machines.  For example, women shared the same mouth piece to spin thread.  If one woman used the mouth piece, and had pneumonia, for example, and then the next woman sat down to use the same mouth piece, she would then catch the illness.  There were also many risks that came with working these machines.  Breathing in cotton fibers for several years was detrimental to the workers lungs.  Most people didn't live past the age of thirty.  One particular hazardous job that young children often were made to do because of its lack of skills they possessed, was pulling out materials between the spinning tubes.  This job was very dangerous and resulted in broken and mangled fingers.  If you were wearing loose clothing you could be pulled into the machine.  If you had long hair and it wasn't pulled back properly, your hair could get stuck in the machine and your hair would be pulled out in clumps, or you could be scalped.  Clearly, there were many health and safety hazards.

                Overall, I feel that I learned more from our discussion with an outside expert on Textile Manufacturing and Industrialization, like Jamie, than reading some of our handouts.  One thing that I especially liked about this experience was being able to see the machines which made me feel as if I was actually there.  One thing that was frustrating about this experience was how the hangout would sometimes not work very well, or we couldn’t hear what Jamie was saying clearly, or see what he was showing us.  However, this Live Google Hangout really made me psyched up about learning more about the Industrialization of Great Britain and America.  Therefore, I would love to do it again with experts on other topics throughout the school year because I think it would make the topics more interesting and exciting.

Exploring the Industrial Revolution

After we all read and looked over our documents, we started to analyze each document together as a group.  We took notes on each document and found important facts and then used this information to start analyzing and drawing conclusions.  Analyzing documents is an important part of curating because in order to create an interesting and in depth museum exhibit, you must understand your documents and be able to make specific selections to include in your exhibit.  Our exhibit is about Child Labor, and is titled “Stolen Childhood.”  We read and analyzed six documents.  The first document was a picture of young children chained to a cart pulling heavy loads into a mine.  The second document was a photograph taken by Lewis Hine that depicted young laborers working in the Georgia Textile Mill.  The next document was titled “Bobbin Girls” and talked about girls’ jobs working on a Spinning Jenny.  The next document was another article, titled “Factory Act” and listed some of the Acts against child labor that were put into law during the Industrial Revolution.  The fifth document we analyzed was a chart that showed the starting working ages of children from the past.  The last document that we studied was another picture, this time by Hurrier Cobden, of children crawling in the mines.  After completing our analysis of all of our documents and writing up what we were going to include in our exhibit, my group designed our exhibit which we titled, “Stolen Childhood.” The exhibit depicts how children were affected by their workload not just physically, but also emotionally.  This made us realize that instead of doing traditional or typical activities during their childhood, children living in the Industrial Revolution had an extremely laborious and arduous early life.  Thus, their childhood was essentially “stolen.”  I hope that when visitors come to our museum exhibit, they will see that to work and maintain these new innovative machines in the mills and factories, young helpers had to work tiresome hours which led them to be negatively affected by this severe treatment.

The first exhibit that I went that the other groups curated was titled, “Tearing Down Families.”  This title really made me realize that not everything coming out of the Industrial Revolution was positive.  For example, many machines produced materials much faster than ever before in the factories which were located in the cities causing families to have to move close to cities in order to earn money.  The next exhibit that I visited was title, “All Aboard.”  Without reading any of the information on the poster, I could already tell that this exhibit was about transportation, which is why “All Aboard” was a great title.  I was surprised to learn that although many citizens thought the invention of the railroad would revolutionize transportation, others thought that railroads would harm the world.  After the “All Aboard” exhibit, I then went to the exhibit called, “Progress has a Price.” Once again, the name of this exhibit really intrigued me because it shows that with the incredible progress that was made during the Industrial Revolution, there were also negative consequences.  One major consequence was that, even with all the new jobs available via the Revolution, people still didn’t have a lot of money to get buy easily in life.  The last exhibit that I visited on my tour was titled, “Behind the Scenes.” This title was well suited for this particular exhibit since it was about slavery.  As I read through this exhibit, I was surprised to learn that there was a rapid increase in slavery during the Industrial Revolution.  I really enjoyed looking at all of the exhibits.  Each exhibit seemed to speak to the positive and negative sides effects of the Industrial Revolution, which really made me question if it was all that “revolutionary.”

The Industrial Spark

Our first unit in Honors History 10 is about the Industrial Revolution.  The essential question for this unit is, “What was ‘revolutionary’ about industrialization?”  To learn more about industrialization we were put into groups and assigned one of the four topics to research; people, technology, resources, and transportation.  My group researched resources and we found out a lot of interesting facts about, iron, coal, capital, and cotton and their immense impact on the industrial revolution.  We then shared our findings with the other groups.  As we read about and discussed each topic we inched closer to answering the essential questions given to us.  Resources and technology were two elements that significantly made the industrialization ‘revolutionary.’

                The three main resources that greatly influenced and, in a sense, fueled the Industrial Revolution in England, were iron, coal, and cotton.  Capital also helped make the Industrial Revolution revolutionary.  Iron was often used, and in great demand, during this time period in construction and manufacturing in the form of steel which was used to make different kinds of new innovative machinery.  In 1709, Abraham Darby found a new way of producing coal and his achievements led to the production of less expensive and better quality iron.  This reformed iron was used even more often after the invention of the railroad.  Iron made the Industrial Revolution ‘revolutionary’ because now people could produce iron to make other materials and machines that were never made before.  Coal was used as a main source of fuel in the productions of iron; Darby used coal to melt iron.  Coal was also needed for the construction of steam engines which dramatically increased production in many industries.  Coal, along with iron, allowed new machines to be built that could produce a wide variety of items that had never been produced so rapidly before, which is another reason why resources made the Industrial Revolution revolutionary.  Cotton, normally imported from India, became a popular clothing material in Britain and they wanted to make the cloth in their own country.  The British invented the putting-out system where raw cotton was distributed to peasant families and spun into thread and then into cloth.  This revolutionary system allowed peasant families to make their clothes in their own houses.  This process was slow, and eventually the devices which were invented for spinning thread became too big for individual homes, so factories were built to accommodate the space needs.  Capital, although not a technically a resource, it is a business term that means having wealth to be able to invest in enterprises such as shipping, mines, railroads, and factories.  In other words, capital is the money you use to grow your business.  The business class during this time in history accumulated immense wealth from the prosperous trading businesses.  Many people risked their capital to start new ventures.  Capital also made the Industrial Revolution revolutionary because now England’s economy flourished, as well as the rest of Europe and beyond, and the increased capital expenditures made this possible. 

             

Besides resources, the technology that was created during the Industrial Revolution also made it revolutionary.  Three main technologies that were invented during this time period, were the steam engine, the improvement in the quality of iron, and three significant innovations in textiles.  The steam engine was invented by Thomas Newcomen which was later improved by James Watt.  This machine was the first to be able to create electrical energy by burning coal which powered engines.  The steam engine now allowed electricity to be available in factories providing power and light which dramatically increased production and helped revolutionize Britain’s industries and economy.  Besides the steam engine, the purity of iron was improved on by removing impurities, which made machinery and parts made from iron more pure or stable.  The Darby family discovered ways to make cheaper iron, as well.  They made more iron than ever before which resulted in the cost of iron decreasing thereby making it more available.  This made the Industrial Revolution revolutionary because cheaper iron allowed there to be additional funding to expand the railroad system and stronger iron made for more reliable transportation.  There were three innovations in the textile industry; the flying shuttle, spinning jenny, and water frame.  The Flying shuttle was invented by John Kay and made weavers work faster so that they outpaced spinners.  The spinning jenny was invented in 1764 by James Hargreaves.  This innovations solved the problem of weavers outpacing spinners.  The spinning jenny spun multiple threads at once.  The third innovation was the water frame and it was invented several years later by Richard Arkwright.  This machine made spinning even faster by using water power.  Before the Industrial revolution, people used the putting-out method which was a slow process and not as efficient.  Now, with higher quality and increased iron production, plentiful coal, incredible technological innovations, and the needed capital, the Industrial Revolution became revolutionary.

Thompson, Elizabeth.  “Spinning Jenny.”  Pgapworld.  Picture Image.  2/10/09.  https://pgapworld.wikispaces.com/Spinning+Jenny.  9/10/14.

Authenticity Isn't Always Easy to Find

The first few group assignments that we completed in class were all meant to teach us how to search and use online resources in a responsible way.  Ever since Middle School, teachers have told us that finding a good source for research online can be difficult, but must be done.  These three small activities taught us the importance of a reliable website to use when finding information.  First, we did a Google a Day, then we defined Accuracy, Authenticity, and Reliability, and then we went to the ambiguous cite about the infamous Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.

                A Google a Day is an activity created by the company Google where they post a sets of questions that you are challenged to answer.   We answered three in class.  Google provides a research engine that you have to use to answer the questions, if you don’t know the answer.  Most questions are asking about something that you have never heard of, but sometimes you recognize something mentioned in the questions which can play to your advantage.  I thought that it was fun rummaging through websites as fast as we could trying to find the answer because it made finding an answer to a seemingly impossible question, in a brutally hot classroom, almost fun.  I found it very frustrating when we thought that we had found the correct answer, when in fact, it was incorrect and we had to start our search all over again.  I didn't know that Google had this program before or that Lily Collins was in The Blind Side, which I thought was a great movie.

  

Popsugar. “Do You Like Google’s Themed Logos?”  Picture image.  http://www.popsugar.com/tech/Do-You-Like-Google-Themed-Logos-3085353.  9/3/14.

                Today in class we were asked to define accuracy, authenticity, and reliability.  In my group we defined accuracy as being correct and true, authenticity as real and not copied, and reliability as dependable.  All three of these terms are very important when determining if a website is good or not to use when you are researching a topic.  If a website is accurate, authentic, and reliable, then it is the perfect source to use.  After talking about what makes up a good source, we then went to a website that is not trustworthy.  This website is about the Pacific NorthwestTree Octopus, and although the website seems credible and authentic and filled with detailed, it has completely false information.  The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is a completely made up creature.  Since this website is false and therefore not reliable, it could not be used as a source in school.

Own Your Education

There are many qualities that make a teacher fantastic.  Some general qualities are patience, understanding, being accessible for questions outside of school, being approachable, and focused on teaching instead of getting off track.  In the past years, I have had both good and bad teachers.  My two favorite teachers that I have had, who both happen to be English teachers, are Mrs. Kalmakis from 6^th grade and Mr. Olivo from 8^th grade.  I really enjoyed Mrs. Kalmakis’s class because she created interesting assignments and lead great discussions about books that we were reading.  I liked Mr. Olivo because he also lead fantastic discussions and made fun assignments for us to do, but he also listened to your questions and did anything he could to answer them clearly.  I think if you, Mrs. Gallagher, follow along these guidelines, you will be a great teacher and make this year a terrific learning experience for all of us.  I can’t wait to use technology every day and get better equipped at it!

                                                               

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green.  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/abundance-of-katherines-john-green/1100361618?ean=9780142410707  

After watching John Green’s very inspirational video, An Open Letter to Students Returning to School, about how it is your duty to use your education to do great things for yourself and the world, I was truly inspired.  I completely agreed with all the points he made in his video.  It is each and every student’s duty to ask themselves, “Do I want to work hard and achieve great things?”  And if a student answers yes to that question, then they need to put in the time and effort into school and appreciate what they have at their fingertips and use it.  John Green’s video inspired me to look at each subject and point out all the interesting things I will learn in that subject.  This makes the subject more exciting.  For example, today in chemistry class, my teacher put rubbing alcohol on her lab table and then lit the liquid on fire.  I thought that what happened was so fascinating and the fact that we are going to do experiments like that in the future now makes me even more excited to come to class every day.  My academic goals for this year are to study harder for the subjects that I struggle in, Honors Chemistry and Honors Algebra 2, and work very hard to hopefully win the Century Award again like I did last year.  I also want to take chances with my writing, in all subjects, in hopes of stepping outside of the box to make all of my assignments more original.  I also hope to become a better tennis player and dancer.  In addition, I want to restart piano lessons and advance to high levels.  I am going to reach these goals with the same mindset; if I really want to achieve, I have to be willing to try my hardest and if I really am determined, I will accomplish all these goals.  An Abundance of Katherines is my favorite book my John Green, and is one of the many books that inspires me to become a writer.  In the long run, I hope my new fond determination will allow me to reach my greatest goal someday; to become a writer like John Green, and maybe someday even write my own novel.