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Teach PA History
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Digging, Smelting and Forging: But Why in Pennsylvania?
Equipment & Supplies
  • Computer with Internet Access Projector 5 containers of play-doh
Procedures

Day One



1. Introduce students to the topic of iron smelting and forging in Pennsylvania. Give each student a copy of Some Account of the Province of Pennsylvania in America Title Page 1681, Student Handout 1-William Penn and Student Worksheet 1- William Penn. Have each student read the document and answer the questions independently. Then have the students share their answers with a partner and explain their answers to each other. This document introduces many of the natural resources William Penn witnessed when first settling Pennsylvania. Penn mentions the area has a capability of producing wood (needed to fuel furnaces) and iron, and the document should begin to answer the question, "Digging, Smelting and Forging: But Why in Pennsylvania?"

2. Show the students images of various scenes around Pennsylvania Iron Furnaces and Forges. Use images:
Eagle Ironworks Scenery
Chickies No 2 Facet
Cornwall Ore Banks Scenery
Hopewell Furnace

3. Divide the class into small groups of 3-4 persons. Give each group of students a copy of each of the images. Have the students look at all of the images and look for similarities among them. Ask the students to brainstorm why all of the images would have the same elements in common. Examples of the similarities students may find include:


  • different stages of wood in the photograph (forest, trees, wood piles)

  • all have modes of transportation (canal, railroad, road)

  • buildings with smoke stacks and/or smoke rising from them


Once they have identified similarities in the images, have the students try to identify what they might have been used for in iron production. For instance,


  • All of the images show different stages of wood. During the early years of iron manufacture, wood was made into charcoal which was used to fuel the fire of the furnace.

  • Modes of transportation seen in the images would have been necessary to haul raw materials to the furnace and to take the final product to market. In the Hopewell Village image, they could have also been used to bring the ironworker to work and to bring in daily living supplies to the village.

  • These may have been buildings where the iron was manufactured or forged into products. Iron furnaces were smoky, hot places to work. Iron ore was heated with other natural resources–the furnace temperature reaching anywhere from 2600 F to 3000 F–to produce molten iron. (Note: the cloud seen in Cornwall Ore Bank image could also be steam produced in hauling the ore up the hoist.)


4. Next tell students they will be working with and interpreting natural resource maps that relate to the iron industry. Ask students "What is a natural resource map?" [It is a map showing information on a natural resource. (A natural resource, as defined by PBS (National Geographic's Strange Days on Planet Earth.Glossary, is anything in the environment that a species would find valuable. For humans this could be water, earth, forest, and any form of energy.] Give each student a copy of Student Worksheet 2- Interpretation of Maps. Provide students or groups of students with copies of the following images:

Lumber Production
Working Stone Quarries
Bituminous and Anthracite
Iron and Steel Manufacturing

Students will interpret the maps to answer the questions on the worksheet. For the worksheet assessment, a teacher guide is provided Teacher Guide to Student Worksheet 2-Interpretation of Maps. If extra time is needed to complete the worksheet, allow students to complete as homework. Once the worksheet is finished, ask students how they think these resources–lumber, stone, and coal–are connected to the iron industry. [They were all used at some point in history in the manufacture of iron. Lumber was skillfully smoldered to make charcoal, which fueled early furnaces. Coal fueled later furnaces. And stone, particularly limestone, was used to draw away impurities of the iron ore when heated in the furnace.]

Day Two



1. Begin class by recapping yesterday: "We learned about the potential of an iron industry from William Penn's invitation, we learned a bit about the iron industry by analyzing and comparing photographs of different work sites, and we studied natural resource maps of materials used to make iron. Today we are going to learn about the specific process of smelting iron ore as well as what other factors impacted the iron industry."

2. Show students Iron Ore and ask them if they know what it is. Give students hints by telling them that various products are made of the material (cannons, stove plates, pots and pans, cannon balls, etc.). If the students can not guess what the material is based on the picture and the hints, tell the students that the rock is a common type of iron ore called "hematite". Explain to the students that they will be learning about why iron was so popular in Pennsylvania and how the iron ore "rock" gets turned into various other products.

3. Explain to students that iron is a deposit that is found in the earth. It is combined with a variety of other materials and heated in a furnace. In the furnace iron ore is turned into molten iron. After the waste (called slag) runs off, molten iron cools in gutters that form bars of rough iron called pig iron. Pig iron can then be heated again and hammered to make wrought iron. Wrought iron is used to make various products like agricultural tools. Tell the students that they are going to look at a visual example of how the iron process works.

4. Using a computer and projector show students the How Stuff Works: The Blast Furnance Animation As the teacher and/or students click on the blast furnace, you will have an opportunity to start or stop the iron process. Play the entire process through once. As you play through the process again, you will have the opportunity to explain the process in more detail. Each step will have a visual movement to represent what is taking place and how each step of the process works. You will be able to pause during or after each step to explain in more detail what is happening or answer student questions. It will be helpful to explain unknown terms to the students to help them understand the process and the visual example.

Unknown Terms
cams - rotating pieces of machinery, (made of wood in this case) which help translate rotary motion to linear motion. The cams rotate, and its spokes push the bellows down in a linear motion.
coke - coal which has been heated to burn off oils (impurities) to leave carbon.
crucible - a container at the bottom of an iron furnace where the molten metal collects, made of a substance that can resist the great heat required for melting metals.
iron ore - compounds of iron and oxygen.
pig iron - a crude form of iron which still contains some impurities such as sulfur and carbon, despite the smelting process.
pig bed - a sand bed into which molten iron is poured after the smelting process.
slag - the waste product made up of limestone and silica (impurities in the iron ore), ash, and oxides. It is a mixture which is lighter than the molten iron so it forms a layer above it.
tuyere (pipe) - the nozzle through which an air blast is delivered into the furnace.

5. Give each student a copy of Student Handout 2- The Blast Furnace and Student Worksheet 3-The Blast Furnace. Using the image and the knowledge from the previous activity, have the students complete the worksheet individually. This will give students a chance to apply what they learned during the internet interactive activity as well as interpret the image to further understand the smelting process.

6. As a review of the previous activities and images, ask students to identify what materials are needed to turn iron ore into molten iron [limestone, iron ore, charcoal, coke, water, etc.] Explain to students that these are natural resources that are only found in certain parts of the country/world.

7. After students understand how Pennsylvania was unique in so richly possessing the resources which make up iron, give each student a copy of Student Worksheet 4- Events and Products. Have the students work in partners to complete this worksheet. Have them consider the various historical events that impacted the iron industry and created an even greater market demand.

8. Give each student a copy of Student Worksheet 5- The Growth of the Railroad. Have the students complete this worksheet using Student Handout 3- Railroad images. When all students are finished, discuss how the railroad growth and expansion was directly related to the growth and expansion of the iron industry in Pennsylvania.

9. Discuss how the increase in population led to an increase in demand and, therefore, a need for more iron production in Pennsylvania. To explain how the increase in population led to an expansion of the iron industry, use a concrete example in class. Split the class into groups of five students. Have one group start out with the teacher. Students in Group 1 are the first settlers in the new colony. They will each be given a container of play-doh. Tell them that the play-doh is representing iron and they are to use the iron to create something that they will need. After about 2 minutes, tell the students in Group 2 that they have immigrated to the new country and are now settling in the same area. They too need some iron in order to make the products that the will need as they begin to settle. [The students in Group 1 must now share their play-doh with the students in Group 2]. After about 2 minutes instruct the students in group 3 that they too are immigrants settling in the same area and they also need some iron. The students will now share their play-doh with the students in group 3. Finally, the group 4 students are told that they have immigrated to the same area. They need to find some iron in order to be able to make the things that they will need to survive. At the end of the activity, each student will have very little iron. They will probably not have enough to build anything, much less what they need.

10. As a culminating activity, have students pretend that they are an ironmaster (Mark Bird from Hopewell, or any other…). They are writing a bank to acquire a loan to start an iron furnace and plantation. Part 1: They need to convince the banker that the area they have chosen to build on will be profitable for producing iron. Part 2: They have received the loan and they are doing well. However, they cannot keep up with the demand for iron. They are writing the banker to request an expansion of their iron plantation. (switching from charcoal to anthracite furnace perhaps). They are to clearly explain to the banker why this expansion is necessary and why the market for iron is increasing. This may be completed as a homework assignment or a project if desired.

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