Plantation
Production
- Post-site
Activity/ Teacher
Led
Grade
Level: 8
Content
Area: History
Time
to Complete: 1 class period
Title of Lesson: Plantation Production
South
Carolina State Standards Addressed:
|
8-1.4 |
Explain the
growth of the African American population during the colonial period
and the significance of African Americans in the developing culture
(e.g. Gullah) and economy of South Carolina, including the origins
of African American slaves, the growth of the slave trade, the
impact of population imbalance between African and European
Americans and the Stono Rebellion and subsequent laws to control the
slave population. |
|
8-1.6 |
Explain how
South Carolinians used natural, human, and political resources to
gain economic prosperity, including trade with Barbados, rice
planting, Eliza Lucas Pinckney and indigo planting, the slave trade,
and the practice of mercantilism. |
Lesson
Description:
The following classroom activity is designed to reinforce
the material covered in the fieldtrip and for the teacher
to assess the knowledge gained from the visit to Hampton Plantation.
Focus
Questions for Students:
| 1. |
What is a plantation? |
| 2. |
If you were given property to farm, what crops would you grow? |
| 3. |
How is farming different today than during the plantation
era? |
| 4. |
What technological advancements do we have today that were
not available during the plantation era? |
Materials/Resources:
None
Culminating Assessment:
After participating in the On-Site program at Hampton Plantation
students should have an understanding of the following: What
a plantation is, the buildings that make up a plantation,
the source of labor, cash crops grown at Hampton, why rice
and indigo were grown in this area, and where the money went
from the rice and indigo.
Activities:
Activity I
Have students design their own plantation. Allow them to choose
their own cash crops, and have them draw or write about the
imperative features needed for production. Work can be assessed
based on their inclusion of labor and business prospects,
irrigation and cultivation practices, and design of landscape
and land use.
Activity II
Have students choose a person that you would find on a plantation
(ex. Cook, owner, field hand, son or daughter of owner or
slave). Pretend you are this person and in your journal write
out what you did and saw for one day (half a page). What did
you eat, what time did you get up, did you buy anything, etc.
Have students share with the class how their “day”
went. Remember, time moved a lot slower back then.
Activity
III
Discuss the emancipation of slavery and how it affected the
plantation system. Ask students how machines and technology
have replaced the need for manual labor. Write down other
systems and businesses that were affected by this change.
|
