Impacts of the Industrial Revolution
Teacher Resources
Lesson Guide
For teaching tips, vocabulary, timing, and sample answers, check out the Lesson Guide. Be sure to check out the guide for instructions and tips on running the Contextualization: How Was Industrialization Possible? activity.
Industrial Revolution and Climate Change
If you’re looking to extend student learning on industrialization, check out this history and climate change lesson plan.
Driving Question: What technologies helped launch the Industrial Revolution and how did they change life for people?
Explore the impacts of rapid industrialization on technological innovation and economic and social structures across the world. Innovations such as the railroad or the development of fossil fuels brought this revolution to more people, improving lives but also presenting challenges to a growing world.
Learning Objectives:
- Evaluate how the Industrial Revolution changed human communities and societies during this era.
- Understand how innovations made possible by the Industrial Revolution changed the movement of goods and people.
- Use the historical thinking practice of contextualization to evaluate the Industrial Revolution.
Vocab Terms:
Did you know: Victorians loved their wallpaper…to death! Some of the most popular Victorian wallpaper colors were Scheele’s green and Paris green. These greens provided vibrant, durable green hues that were extraordinarily fashionable. There was just one problem: These green wallpapers contained a ton of arsenic. Particularly in damp conditions, the arsenic could break down and release poisonous gas into the home, resulting in sickness and death. And it wasn’t just wallpaper. Many industrial consumer goods, including clothing, artificial flowers, and toys all contained arsenic.
Check out these before and after images to draw conclusions about the impacts of the Industrial Revolution on Manchester, England.
Transformation of Manchester
This is your students’ introduction to the historical thinking skill of contextualization. If you need to brush up on the ideas behind this skill, our contextualization one-pager provides helpful background to support your teaching.
Without context, it’s easy to misinterpret what you see, read, and hear. See how contextualization is key to understanding data, and then learn how to use the Contextualization Tool.
This contextualization activity requires a small amount of prep work. Be sure to print and cut out the Event Cards or copy our version in Google Slides. You’ll also need tape and the Feedback Form.
Innovation played a key role in industrialization. Explore the technologies that made industrialization possible in the article and video, and then apply your understanding in the activity by examining the historical context that gave rise to industrialization.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
How quickly did industrialization change things? These before and after images will give you a sense of the speed of transformation.
Images of the Industrial Revolution
You’ve learned about a lot of technologies in this lesson that transformed the world. Practice your claim making skills as you argue for the one you think was the most important.
Exciting new inventions—including the ability to filter water—improved lives during the Industrial Revolution. But for those providing coal, which was the source of power for many of these innovations, the work was difficult and dangerous.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
