Untitled Document

Walking Into the Past:
A Guide to the Rosenbach's School Neighborhood Mapping Projects

Lesson Guide: What's Down Below The Street? City Infrastructure

The Rosenbach Museum & Library, 2018-2010 DeLancey Place, Philadelphia, PA 19103; 215-732-1600; www.rosenbach.org

Overview	Materials
Introduction: This lesson helps students understand the need for city infrastructure and the importance of good systems for a healthy neighborhood or city. It also focuses on the history of the city and its different uses of land over time. In classroom practice, this tour was given by a professional tour agency ("Poor Richard's" Tours.) Skill Focus: Observation and analysis of primary source objects (city infrastructure); Map reading; Understanding patterns of human settlement; Noting and recalling relevant factual material. Vocabulary: infrastructure, manholes, surveyor's map, water system	Underground by David MacCauly--one class copy Map of City Water Department Historic Surveyor's Map (if available) Cameras for students and/or sketch materials and/or student journals. Information on the history of the city's transportation systems and infrastructure.
Activities	Discussion Points
*Walking Tour--Looking Up* The following is a guide to a city walking tour and provides suggestions for directing student observation and discussion while on the streets. It is designed for small groups of about 15 students and one or two teacher tour guides with each group. Students may bring cameras to document the tour and/or write journal entries documenting their observations. Throughout the tour, students should be instructed to photograph or sketch their observations both as a way of recording information and as a way of observing more carefully.
1) Warm-Up Discussion: Explain that students will again be looking for health of the neighborhood, but on this tour, they will look below the surface--inside the body, if the neighborhood were a person. Make the connection to the human body. Food comes in; waste goes out. How does this happen in a city? Introduce the term infrastructure.	How is the neighborhood like a human body? How does "food" come in and "waste" go out?
2) Moving Around: Begin the tour at a location where students can see various modes of transportation in action--air, train, car, truck, bus, etc. Discuss the ways in which these modes bring things in or take them out--help the city to "feed" itself. Also discuss these travel modes as connected to the city's history.	How does the city "feed" itself? How has this changed over time?
3) Inside Look: Stop at a manhole cover and look down. Note the difference between the manhole covers, their designs, and the names of the companies. Ask why they are there? Why are they a particular size? What's down there? Explain that these covers open up to the "guts" of the city. See what students can discover from observing or drawing a manhole cover. Explain the use of tread on the covers to give horses better traction. Reference the MacCauly book for explanations of what's under the streets--gas, steam, water, telephone, electricity, etc. Try to find a site where you can see up under a bridge so students can note all of the tubes and wires that are present.	What's under a manhole cover? How does what's under the street connect people in the city?
4) Location For Factory Work: Proceed to a site where you can find old factories that are converted into residential living spaces or are no longer used. Discuss the reasons for the factory's site. What resources did they need to operate? (rail access, water access, road access, etc.) How did they get their goods to other cities? Discuss why these buildings are used for different purposes now or are no longer used. Discuss why present day factories are no longer required to have water access. Observe nearby houses and discuss worker housing.	What did old factories need that new factories don't? How do new kinds of infrastructure (like roads) change the way cities are organized?
5) Where the Water Flows: Give each student a partial copy of the city's water map for your current location. Have students locate themselves on the map. Have students find a water department manhole cover and locate it on the map. Begin to trace storm drain runoff to the nearest river or major outflow. Have a copy of a historic surveyor's map showing your location. Observe where streams or rivers used to be. In some cases, manhole covers are over former streams. Follow the course of the water flow from one storm drain or manhole cover to the next, following it to the nearby river or outflow. (E.g. the Schuylkill River) Note the surrounding buildings and discuss the history of who might have lived along the banks of a stream and why. Continue to discuss the balance of made-made environments vs. natural environment.	Which way does water flow? Where does the water flow from where you are? How can you use your ears to investigate what's below the street? How has the land of the city changed over time?
6) Where The Water Goes: Near the river where the water empties, find a manhole where you can hear it rushing. Ask students where it came from and where it's going? Discuss the history ofmunicipal water system, (E.g. Philadelphia had the first.) and how it works today. Relate the city to an organism. How do we take care of our waste? How do we provide healthy water for residents of the city? Discuss once again what makes a healthy city and how we need a balance for health.	How do we get clean water? How do we treat waste water? What can we all do to keep our supply of clean water?
Follow-Up: Ask students to write a journal in response to the question, "How does the city get its water?" Ask them to list items of discovery from their tour, using examples of the many clues that they have identified.

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