Activity 4.2.1 Biographies of Societal Changes: Inventions & Inventors

Purpose
To understand the value of life changes and the growth of ideas
Materials
Computer with Internet access, and/or library access, poster board
Time
2–3 hrs initially, and ongoing over a two-week period
Method
  1. Discuss with participants what life was like 100 years ago. Discuss fears that people may have had toward new inventions. For example, some people believed the telephone was the work of the “devil”. Why would people fear change?
  2. Ask participants to name inventions that changed the world.
  3. Ask for ideas on how people must have lived in the world before these inventions. List all the ideas.
  4. Each participant will choose an invention and present a biography on the inventor(s). In order to ensure that everyone has a different invention, the facilitator can write the names of inventions on separate pieces of paper, fold, and put them into a box. Participants will draw one paper from the box.
  5. Participants can find the inventor’s name by using a computer search engine and typing “inventor/invention name”, e.g., inventor/telephone.
  6. Instruct or guide participants in using a local library and/or computer Internet access to find information on their inventor, as well as pictures that relate to their invention.
  7. Facilitators may ask participants to highlight important information from the text that they gather, and then write a brief biography on their inventor.
  8. The questions that participants should answer are:
  9. Give each participant a poster board to display the collected information and pictures.
  10. Allow approximately two weeks to complete this assignment. Inform participants that they will be required to present their inventor’s biography to the rest of the group.

Some ideas for inventors are: