A Chat With the MOSI

     The MOSI isn't a secret agent company, it is a Museum across the pond in England.  The day before yesterday, our class had the amazing opportunity to skype with Jaime and Darren, Museum Curators, to learn more about the textile industry in Great Britain.  Jaime and Darren are curators at The Museum of Science and Industry in England.  Before we could meet them though, we had to prepare ourselves.  The day before, our class went on the MOSI website and read about Richard Arkwright and some of Manchester’s Textile Designers.  We also watched a “prep” video that gave us a brief overview of the museum with Jaime explaining some significant terms.  We all made of list of the terminologies and defined them within groups after the video.  When we were searching the definitions for words, we had to be careful with the keywords we used in search bar because we wanted the definitions related to textiles.  Then within our groups, we prepared questions we wanted to ask Jaime and Darren.  A few of the questions I had are: What were some of the risks that families took when they worked in the mills and what was the maintenance of the machines like?  How long did they last?  The early prepping really helped us understand some of what Jaime talked about during the video chat. 

Shuttle

Speed Frame

     Jaime taught us a lot about the machines that were used and a lot more about the people who worked and the conditions that they worked in.  Jaime explained how the people worked constantly, “From sunrise to when it is too dark to keep working.”   The men usually operated the hand loom.  It was hand powered and created thread.  Men who usually worked the hand loom got arthritis.  In the old days, the loom was passed down from father to son.  Hence the name, heir loom.  The women operated the spinning wheel and the children would do the basic carding.  We saw a prototype of Arkwright’s water frame.  I was surprised to learn that Arkwright wasn't the actual inventor. He improved on other people's ideas but still got the recognition and money.  We also learned a lot about risks.  Many workers became deaf, had tuberculosis, and mouth, lung or throat cancer.  Disease spread like a wild fire in these mills because sanitation was really bad.  If women didn’t tie their hair back, it would be pulled back in clumps.  700 hundred bits of fiber entered the lung a day because the thread for the shuttle had to be put in the mouth before into a hole in the shuttle.  Children would have to clean the machines like the speed frame while it was running which lead to mangled hands and broken fingers.    

      I definitely learned a lot more from this video chat than I probably would have from a textbook.  It is hard to understand how the overall textile process is performed from reading a textbook, but it was very helpful to see the machines in front of us because we could understand how they were used.  Also the stories that he had were really interesting.  The only part that was a little annoying was the video quality, how it cut off what Jaime was saying sometimes and also screen wasn’t clear, but aside from that, it was really cool.  Plus, he’s from England talking to us from a totally different country!!!  I would love to do this again with other experts on other topics.  It was an entirely new experience and I really like it.  

Gold, Silver....and Rust

   Last week in History class, my group and I became Museum Curators of the 4^th floor of our school.  We were given a letter from during the Industrial Revolution and had to research more about the letter to answer sourcing questions: Who wrote it?  Why did they write it?  This led to our group project.  We were given sources like paintings, statistics, and letters and we had to set up an exhibit based on the sources we were given. 

     After looking though all the sources, we had to decide what the theme was.  Based on the sources we were given, we concluded that the point we should try to inform our readers was that the Industrial Revolution had negative affects alongside positive affects towards the people and

Making Money,
Destroying Neighborhoods

environment.  After deciding the theme of our exhibit, we did background research on the sources and made sure the source was relevant to the exhibit.  Then we determined what should be learned from the exhibit and accordingly, we designed placards and labeled pictures and added captions.  Finally, we added a title, “Making Money, Destroying Neighborhoods.”  The title wasn’t too boring and it sums up what we want the audience to learn from our exhibit.  The Industrial Revolution did a lot of good things for society, factories were created and there was better travel!  It wasn’t all silver and gold though.  There was rust everywhere.  The environment was polluted and people weren’t living healthy and comfortable lives. 

     Other groups also did exhibits in my class.  Group A talked about how once the Spinning Machines were invented, only one person was needed to maintain them, usually the father.  So what used to be everyone earning some money for the week became only the father earning the money and was fully dependent on.  Group B talked about the new transportation systems such as the steam engine and the railway.  These really helped traveling become more efficient.  Group D talks about the regulations and laws passed for the children who work.  According to different sources, children under the age of 18 shouldn’t work during the night time and should only work 10 hours per day.  Group E talked about how slavery increased drastically because of the Industrial Revolution.  The Industrial Revolution made a lot of significant changes.  Not all of them were positive though; there were a lot of negative effects also.  

A Much Better Life

     A few days ago, my history class was put into groups and we were each assigned a few topics to learn about the Industrial Revolution.  We learned about how the industrial revolution affected everyday people, and how it was the era of new technology, resources, and transportation.  The Industrial Revolution was a huge revolution because of the significant changes and impacts it had created not only in its origin, Europe, but all over the world.  The industrial revolution led to a better life for people and amazing new technology. 

     The Industrial Revolution changed people’s lives and was the beginning of improved farming methods and enclosure.  The Dutch started the agriculture revolution by building walls called dikes, combined smaller fields into larger fields to make better use of the lands, and used fertilizer from the livestock to renew the soil.  The British expanded from these ideas in the 1700s.  Roy Charles Townshend urged farmers to grow turnips which restored exhausted soil.  Jethro Tull invented a new mechanical device, the seed drill, to plant the seeds in rows (an organized fashion) rather throwing them randomly.  Rich landowners also used enclosure.  Enclosure is the process of taking over and fencing off the land formerly shared by the peasant farmers.  The new farming techniques helped farmers farm more efficiently.  Because of enclosure, peasants were forced to move to factories to build machines.  The agriculture revolution also increased the population of people in Europe.  There was a decrease in famines and because everyone was well fed, more and more people led healthier lives. 

The Spinning Jenny 

     A lot of new technology was also invented during the Industrial Revolution.  In 1712, the Steam Engine was invented by Thomas Newcomen.  The Steam Engine was powered by coal to pump water out of mines.  Iron was also improved.  Coal plays a very important role in the production of iron by separating the iron from its ore.  People were able to produce higher quality iron that was less expensive.  The higher quality iron was used everywhere and especially when building rail roads and textile machines.  There were also many innovations in textiles.  John Kay’s flying shuttle allowed weavers to work faster than spinners.  James Hargerave invented the Spinning Jenny in 1764 which spun many threads at the same time.  Richard Arkwright invented the water frame which used water power to speed up spinning.  To house the machines and the people who worked with them, long sheds were built.  Later the machines were powered by the steam engines.  The machines produced what an entire industry of a district used to produce.  The new technology made people’s lives more efficient and less of a struggle.    

Spinning Jenny: http://faculty.humanities.uci.edu/bjbecker/SpinningWeb/lecture15.html

World History: Connections to Today. Chapter 20 Sections 1 & 2. PearsonSuccessNet.com. Accessed Aug. 25, 2014.

Climbing for Answers

     A few days ago in History, my class was split into groups to do a few activities (although they were more like challenges than activities.)  Together, we went on a cyber-scavenger hunt and also justified that a certain species of octopuses, the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, were fake.  The activities we did in class taught us how to use search engines and online resources responsibly. 

            

     The first activity we did was A Google a Day.  Google a Day was basically a quest to find the answers to the randomest of the randomest questions.  For instance, one of the questions on the website was “Besides the Gorilla Press, what famous finishing move did the face-painted “Warrior” famously use on Hulk Hogan to end the match on April 1, 1990?”  It’s literally a game!  There were five people in my group including me and we all had some kind of techy instrument to find the answers with.  The challenging part was the technique to use to find the answers.  You had to break them apart into small pieces.  This game was actually really fun, but really frustrating because sometimes finding the answers took a really long time.  It was like wracking your brain.  This has definitely taught me that if I want to search something, I can’t copy and paste my question into the search engine.  I’ll have to work bit by bit to get the answer. 

            

Pacific NW Xmas Tree Octopus
http://zapatopi.net/
treeoctopus/sightings.html

     The other activity that we did was proving whether the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is accurate, authentic and reliable based on its website to save the Endangered Pacific Tree Octopus.  Accuracy is how true the information is and whether the website is up to date.  Authenticity is the genuineness; whether the site was what it claimed to be and reliability is whether the author/creator is an expert on the subject at hand.  We concluded that the website was authentic, but not accurate or reliable.  It was authentic because the website claimed to be saving endangered octopuses and however crazy that may sound, it is what the website was about.  The website is not accurate because there is no such thing as a tree octopus and this site isn’t reliable because when you search the creator of the website’s name, Lyle Zapato, you don’t get any information about who he is.  This activity has taught me to make sure a website is all three; accurate, authentic, and reliable before using it for any reason.  

Zapato, Lyle. “Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.” Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Sep. 2014. <http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/>.

Education leads to...Everything!

Hi!  I’m Srimitha!  I’ am 15 years old and am a Sophomore.  I am so excited for this new school year and can’t wait for the new surprises and challenges that this year has in hold for me. This is my second day in Honors History 10 and this is my first blog post of the year!!!

When I walked into my classroom on the first day of school, I couldn't immediately pinpoint what kind of teacher I was going to have; whether I was going to like them or not.  First impressions definitely leave a mark, but I think some of the great teachers can be identified by what they have to offer us as our teachers.  Every teacher has some great qualities.  A great teacher should know you as a person and as a student.  They should make you feel safe in a classroom and support you in your goals and dreams.  A great teacher should also push you to your limits, help you when you are in need of help and make sure that the lessons are interesting and easy to understand.  Some of the best teachers I have had always looked at my work and told me what I did well and what I could do to make my work better.  They were also willing to sit with me after or before school if I needed help.  They were kind, friendly and were people in my life who helped me become a better person and student.  To support me this year, I would like my teacher to be there when I need help and offer me good constructive criticism so I can learn from my mistakes.  

            There are a few teenagers who think that sitting in a desk and listening to a teacher talk about something that is not what’s running on TV tonight is pointless; that school is a waste of time and that we are never going to use a squared plus b squared equals c squared in life.  Recently, I watched a video created by John Green, an Open Letter to Students Returning to School, and I think it will make everyone look at school and learning in a completely new way.  He talks about how educating kids like us led to the creation of the apple devices embedded into our daily life, the amazing books in our libraries

Hot New Technology Devices
http://www.ispsources.com/hot-
new-technology-devices.html

and the medicine that keeps us healthy.  I agree with him because people wouldn't have been able to create such advance things if they hadn't been educated.  This year, I hope to complete all my courses with a thorough understanding of them.  I also wish to become a better officer and co-leader in Science Olympiad and Book Club.  I’m going to work on asking more questions when I have trouble with something and using my time better at home (avoid procrastination *cough *cough*) by avoiding distractions like technology and books (I’m a book geek).  I’m also going to work on speaking up for things I believe and build my self-confidence by participating more in class and stating my ideas more often. 

            A new year has begun and even though I know it’s going to be exhausting, I’m très excited!!!