Additional Activities

Additional Activities

The following activities can be set up by the teacher or done independently by students. Many can be adapted for group work.

Timelines:

Construct a time line of the photographs in the packet, placing them in the proper places on the time line.
Create an illustrated time line of Colorado history using drawings or photographs.
Create a time line of your life, using photographs to illustrate events you consider important in your life.

Oral History:

Invite long-time residents of the community to come to school and share their recollections, and perhaps photographs, of the community surrounding the school. Tape record these citizens either on audio or video tape.
Use the recollections to write and illustrate a neighborhood history book.

Bulletin Boards:

Locate old photographs of your home and neighborhood. Then take a camera and revisit the locations of these photographs and take pictures of what these locations look like now.
Have students bring baby pictures of themselves (with parental permission, of course). Put them up on one half of a bulletin board. On the other half put up their latest photographs or school pictures. Students try to match the baby pictures with pictures of the students today. Compare and contrast how the individuals have changed in the time since the photographs were taken. Ask teachers if they would like to participate also.

Community Connections:

Pair up with another school from a different part of the state or a different part of your city, emphasizing contrasts like rural/urban, small/large, suburban/inner city, etc. Have the students become pen pals Have each class prepare a book to give to the other which will show what their school and community are like. If possible, arrange to get together to meet at the Colorado History Museum for a joint tour of the exhibit.

Time Capsules:

Create a time capsule for the next century using photographs to show changes of the past century. Include photographs of places and people.

Create a time capsule of things you think are representative and important in our society today using photographs of the items.

Writing Activities:

Select an historic photograph and write letters that the people in the photographs might have written, creating their life stories. Or create a diary or journal for someone using the photograph as the setting.
Create a comic book, telling and illustrating the history of your school or community.
Write a children's picture book about some historical aspect of your neighborhood or community and present it to younger students.
Take Polaroid shots around the school and write a story about one of the pictures.
Select a pair of photos from the exhibit and write a story with those photos as the setting, using one family through several generations to show changes over the years.
Research famous photographers and write a short essay on their impact on history, pointing out how they changed or influenced history.
Create a photo/news magazine of the ten most important photographs in this century. Include information about why each photo is significant.
Create a photo-history book about your school to help with the orientation of new students to your school.
Use photographs and letters or diary entries you create to tell the story of your family.
Write an alphabet book for Colorado, using photos and drawings to illustrate the words. (A is for Alamosa, B is for Bison)
Create two travel brochures for Colorado, using "then" pictures to attract settlers to the area a century ago and "now" pictures to attract visitors today.
Use photographs to illustrate a children's book you create on transportation changes in the past 100 years.

Acting and Role Playing:

Write an old fashioned melodrama using an old photograph as the setting. Include a hero, a villain, a damsel in distress, etc. Act out the skit for the class.
Role play Jackson and Fielder in a TV interview format. Discuss topics such as why each took his photographs, what is the value of photography, how their experiences were different and the same, why they chose a particular place to photograph.

Comparing and Contrasting:

Make overhead transparencies, slides, or copies of two photographs, then and now. Have students make their own Venn diagrams to compare them.

Collect old school yearbooks and compare them with today. Try to create a "modern" yearbook that has the look and feel of an old time one.

Art Projects:

Create a photo mural showing important aspects of the school and community. Arrange to display it prominently in your school or in a community building (library, nursing home, community center).
Predict what your school and community will look like 100 years from now. Create a mural or draw pictures to illustrate your ideas, using captions to explain them.
Research photography technology and techniques and make a poster to illustrate your research.

Land Use:

Show students a "then and now" photo, using transparencies, slides, or copies. Ask them where they would put homes, highways, factories, farms, town buildings, schools, railroads, airports, etc. and to write down their ideas.
Show a "now" photo and compare their answers with reality. Discuss the environmental impact of each aspect of development.

Show "then" and "now" photos of a place that is not as developed today as it was earlier. Discuss the reasons why this might have happened and the impact this change might have had on the environment.

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