Enduring Understanding
How do objects help us understand the story of Wisconsin?
Essential Questions
- Why do we save things?
- What makes the things we save important?
- What questions can objects help us answer?
- How do we unlock the meanings of an object?
Wisconsin Standards for Social Studies
Social Studies Inquiry Practices and Processes
- Develop claims using evidence to support reasoning. (Inq3)
- Communicate and critique conclusions. (Inq4)
Economics
- Use economic reasoning to understand issues. (Econ1)
- Analyze how decisions are made and interactions occur among individuals, households, and firms/businesses – Microeconomics. (Econ2)
Geography
- Evaluate the relationship between humans and the environment. (Georg5)
History
- Connect past events, people, and ideas to the present, use different perspectives to draw conclusions, and suggest current implications. (Hist3)
Content Questions
- Why would lumberjacks and logging teams need to mark their logs? What were the consequences of not marking their logs?
- How did the invention of the log marking hammer change the lumber industry? Why was this best tool to use for stamping their logs?
- Why did lumberjacks and loggers work during the winter and spring?
- How do we mark our items today? Who benefits and who does not benefit from marking our work?
Educational Goal Assessment
- Articulate a list of markings that companies, farms, and rangers use.
- Determine how weather and seasons might help move heavy items.
- Summarize the importance of marking logs for the success of a logging company.
- Experiment with different materials to understand friction.
- Tell a story about the past through an object and relate that story to today.
Suggested Performance Task
- Activity #1, Money and Logos
- Separate students in teams of two or three and examine clothing or school supplies. Have them identify logos and other identifying tags on those items. Each group then indicates how much they think each clothing or classroom item cost, and generates a grand total. Have the class discuss how much these companies would lose money if these identifying logos did not exist.
- Activity #2, Mark it Up
- In a short paragraph, have the students reflect on a time when they did not mark their work or did not indicate chores they completed. In a paragraph, have students describe what they learned from not marking their work, if they changed their behavior, and if those new behaviors help them to succeed. Have students identify the behaviors and skills that they added to make sure they get credit for their work and consider how it is similar to those of the logging company and lumberjacks.
- Activity #3, Seasons of Logging
- With a short slideshow, have students indicate which image from a selection of four would the best season in which to perform each task: cutting trees, dragging them to the shore, and transporting them. Have the students state for whom it would easier. In each selection the student must identify why they chose it that option. (See attached slide show, below is the student worksheet)
- Activity #4, Force and Friction of Logging
- In small groups, give students sandpaper, ice cubes, popsicle sticks, a small container of mud, a small bag of dirt, and a small bag of sand. Have the students wrap the popsicle stick in sand paper. Using that stick have them try to slide the sandpaper popsicle stick over mud, dirt, sand, and ice. After each attempt have them record the positives and negatives of each material.
Additional Resources:
- Links to Wisconsin 101: The Lumber Industry in Northern Wisconsin and The Wausau Group: The Businessmen Who Revived Wausau’s Economy. A look at a Wisconsin logging town.
- Links to video from Library of Congress on logging in Maine. It shows a river log drive.
- Links to Wisconsin Historical Society Resources:
- A few typical Chippewa River log marks, including bark marks and end stamps.
- Postcard of loggers posing with logs piled on horse-drawn sleds.
- Historical Essay, “Logging, The Industry that Changes the State.”
- Logging crew posed in snow at logging camp.
