As I was going through the pile of mail on my desk, I came across the December 1999 issue of the Focus on the Family newsletter. The list on the front page caught my eye. It was a count-down of the 100 most influential people of the past millennium, that was done by A&E, a cable TV network. I thought this would make a wonderful unit study! Several of the people on the list we have already studied, through the study of Scientists that we did two years ago. Drawing on some ideas we used at that time, I am planning to study these 100 people, tying in penmanship, writing skills, geography and of course, history. There is plenty of material readily available on all the people on the list, either on the Internet, an encyclopedia, or any number of books. You may view the list at the following website: http://www.biography.com/features/millennium/ There is a short biography of each person, and in some cases, links to other sites. I think we will start with the first person on the list and work our way down, rather than the other way around. I was rather surprised to see who was considered the most influential person of the past 1,000 years - Johann Gutenberg. For those who don't know who he is, you have him to thank, in a way, for the fact that you are reading this. He invented the moveable-type printing press in the middle of the fifteenth century. This printing method was the sole means of mass communication for centuries and remained largely unchanged right through until the late twentieth century, when computers began to revolutionize the process. Here are some of the ideas I plan to use. My boys will each have a binder or notebook, with one page for each person on the list. They will write the name of the person on the top of the page. After we have read about the person, they will write a short paragraph telling when the person lived, where they lived, and why they are on the list. We have a big timeline on our living room wall that we will also put each person on, and a name tag will go on our world map so that we can see where they lived. (I am a visual learner, and I like to have pictures to link my learning to. I picked up an 18 volume set of Art Linkletter's Picture Encyclopedia for Boys and Girls second-hand a couple of years ago, and we cut the pictures out of it to put on our timeline. I have found about 80% of the people we have looked for in those books.) When the A&E video is available, we will rent it and watch the parts about the people we have studied. A few years ago we had A&E for a while (one of those promotional things!), and I taped several biographies, so we will watch any of those that coincide with who we are studying. Those of you who do have A&E may be fortunate enough to have seen the program this idea comes from, or you may be able to view/tape biographies that relate to this list. We will try to cover at least 2 people each week, as project will stretch out too long, if we only cover one per week. Update: I have recently purchased the four video set of this series, so that we can watch the piece on each person as we study them. |
The Armchair Academic Biography of a Millennium - The 100 Most Influential People of the Past Millennium |
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This page was last updated on: October 8, 2001
As I was going through the pile of mail on my desk, I came across the December 1999 issue of the Focus on the Family newsletter. The list on the front page caught my eye. It was a count-down of the 100 most influential people of the past millennium, that was done by A&E, a cable TV network. I thought this would make a wonderful unit study! Several of the people on the list we have already studied, through the study of Scientists that we did two years ago. Drawing on some ideas we used at that time, I am planning to study these 100 people, tying in penmanship, writing skills, geography and of course, history. There is plenty of material readily available on all the people on the list, either on the Internet, an encyclopedia, or any number of books. You may view the list at the following website: http://www.biography.com/features/millennium/ There is a short biography of each person, and in some cases, links to other sites. I think we will start with the first person on the list and work our way down, rather than the other way around. I was rather surprised to see who was considered the most influential person of the past 1,000 years - Johann Gutenberg. For those who don't know who he is, you have him to thank, in a way, for the fact that you are reading this. He invented the moveable-type printing press in the middle of the fifteenth century. This printing method was the sole means of mass communication for centuries and remained largely unchanged right through until the late twentieth century, when computers began to revolutionize the process. Here are some of the ideas I plan to use. My boys will each have a binder or notebook, with one page for each person on the list. They will write the name of the person on the top of the page. After we have read about the person, they will write a short paragraph telling when the person lived, where they lived, and why they are on the list. We have a big timeline on our living room wall that we will also put each person on, and a name tag will go on our world map so that we can see where they lived. (I am a visual learner, and I like to have pictures to link my learning to. I picked up an 18 volume set of Art Linkletter's Picture Encyclopedia for Boys and Girls second-hand a couple of years ago, and we cut the pictures out of it to put on our timeline. I have found about 80% of the people we have looked for in those books.) When the A&E video is available, we will rent it and watch the parts about the people we have studied. A few years ago we had A&E for a while (one of those promotional things!), and I taped several biographies, so we will watch any of those that coincide with who we are studying. Those of you who do have A&E may be fortunate enough to have seen the program this idea comes from, or you may be able to view/tape biographies that relate to this list. We will try to cover at least 2 people each week, as project will stretch out too long, if we only cover one per week. Update: I have recently purchased the four video set of this series, so that we can watch the piece on each person as we study them. |
"Unit studies hold many benefits for families who enjoy learning with one another. They can be as simple as a one-day study perhaps around a special occasion or holiday or encompass several months of in-depth study on a particular topic. You've probably experienced a unit study in your school years or with your family and haven't even known it!" -Sandi Smoker |