Intermediate Lesson

Title: Panama Canal

Arizona State Standards

  • Reading: Strand 2-Concept 1 (identify main ideas, author’s purpose) Strand 3-Concept 1 (analyze non-fiction) Strand 3-Concept 2 (Compare and contrast historical and cultural perspectives)
  • Writing: Summarize Info: Strand 2- Concept 1 (Grades 4 & 5), Strand 3-Concept 2 (Grades 5-8) Strand 3- Concept 2 (Grades 5-8) Concept 6 (Grades 6-8) Expository Writing: Strand 2-Concept 1 (Grades 4 & 5) Strand 1-Concept 3, Strand 2-Concept 1,2, Strand 3-Concpet 2 (Grades 6-8) Strand 2-Concept 3 (Grades 6 & 7 only) Report Writing: Strand 1-Concept 3 (Grades 6-8) Strand 2-Concepts 1 & 2 (Grades 4-8) Concept 3 (Grades 5-8) Strand 3-Concept 2 (Grade 5 only) Strand 3-Concept 6 (Grades 6-8) Research Skills: Strand 2-Concept 1 (Grades 4 & 5) Strand 3-Concepts 2 & 6 (Grades 4-8) (Research Skills)
  • Listening and Speaking: LS-E1, LS-E2, LS-E4 (shares, presents, responds) VP-E1-E3 (analyze, plan, develop, compare and contrast)
  • History: 1SS-E8(research tools) 1SS-E15 (age of exploration)
  • Geography: 3SS-E4 (using geographic tools) 3SS-E5 (regions) 3SS-E6 (social interaction, migration) 3SS-E7 (natural resources) 3SS-E8 (applying skills)

Goals & Objectives:

  1. Students become familiar with the globe and its geography, especially Central American.
  2. Students investigate a way to sail a boat all the way around the world without touching land.
  3. Students learn about the historical development of the Panama Canal.
  4. Students become familiar with socio-political relationships between Central America, Europe and the United States.

Length of lesson: 3 one-hour periods

Materials & Preparation:

  1. globes (1 for every 2-3 students)
  2. string & tape
  3. resource materials and/or internet

Lesson

First Period

  1. Begin lesson by talking about Christopher Columbus. Ask students what they remember about this explorer, until someone mentions that he was trying to find India and instead he found the Americas.
  2. Show the different routes used to get from Spain to India. Show the route he took across the ocean, from Spain to the Caribbean islands.
  3. Explain that the activity they are about to do is similar to that of Columbus. Working in groups of 2-3 students, challenge them to find a way to sail a boat all the way around the world, starting from Spain.
  4. Have students mark the route they find with string. (Do not cut the string, but rather use one piece to mark the whole route.) Use tape to attach the string to the globes.
  5. Have each group share the route they found, making sure that each group did not cross a piece of land.
  6. Untape each route, and compare the lengths of the string, identifying the shortest route that they could find.
  7. Write the route the group followed on the board, giving names and directions to different oceans and seas.
  8. Explain that next time, each group will see if they can find a shorter route still.

Second Period

  1. Show the piece of string and the route that was used during the last period to mark the shortest route around the world in a boat.
  2. Tell students that in 1914 a canal was completed. This canal divided a piece of land in order to connect two bodies of water.
  3. Challenge students to locate that piece of land. Where do you think this shortcut was dug? Allow students to try and locate an area before giving more information.
  4. As students are searching on the globe, ask questions (such as, If you were to dig a piece of land between two oceans, what kind of land would you look for) guiding them to look for narrow strips of land connecting to bodies of water.
  5. Have students share the locations they found, paying attention to the names and places of the geographical locations they identify.
  6. If a group has identified the country of Panama, share that they found the area that was dug to create what we call a canal. If they did not locate Panama, give them clues, such as look in Central America, find an isthmus, between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. See if anyone can locate the label Panama Canal on the globe. If other areas are located, challenge students to research this area, is there a canal in this location?

Third

  1. Show a video about the history and the making of the canal, or read the book, It's Panama's Canal! by Patricia Maloney Markun (Linnet Books, 1999) or even better, in a computer lab, have students explore the following websites about the canal. (Such websites also have readings that could be used in the lesson as well.)
  2. Discuss the political and social issues that students call attention to, such as who did the work? Who was in charge? Who earned the money from the ships passing? (Did the ships have to pay?) What happened in 1999?
  3. Who began to build the canal?

Closure

  1. Return to the globes and see if there is a different location that would have been better for a canal, or a location where a new one should be built. Discuss reasons behind such a decision. Decide as a group if Central America was the best location for a canal and explain why.

Evaluation

  1. Have students write about the Panama Canal. Have them answer who, what, where, when, why and how. (Who created the canal, What is a canal? Where is the Panama Canal? When was it constructed? Why was it constructed? And how was it constructed?)

Extensions

  1. Pretend that a group of business leaders wants to build another canal.
    Working in groups, find other isthmuses on the globe where other canals could be constructed. Have two groups work on each new isthmus that is located. Have one group work on a campaign to convince the government and people of this nation to construct the new canal. Have the other group prepare a campaign to stop this construction. Use historical information from the making and management of the Panama Canal to predict positive and negative outcomes of such a project.
  2. Divide students into two groups and have them plan and hold a debate between Panama and the United States concerning the use and ownership of the Panama Canal.
  3. Using reference materials, hypothesize what kinds of goods and resources travel through the canal. Locate where they come from and where they could be going.
  4. Do a comparative study of the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, historically, politically and geographically.