Energy use during the Industrial Revolution

What you'll need

• Laptop and projector

Role play

• “Assembly line” instructions, print one copy per group of 5-6 students
•  For each group of 5-6 students:
  • 2 glue sticks
  • 1 ruler
  • 1 pair of scissors
  • 1 pencil
  • Colouring crayons or markers
  • 15 sheets of recycled paper (can have printing on one or both sides)
• Timer
• “How to make a 3D paper cube” video (Source: Pretty things)

1. Complete the “Life Pre-Industrial Revolution” activity. Life was very labour intensive then, without the use of today’s conveniences like washing machines and cars. Most people lived in rural areas working on the land and rarely travelling. A lot of tasks were done by hand or using animals including growing food, making fabric, and washing clothes.
2. Ask students to share what they know about the Industrial Revolution. Between 1750-1850, new inventions, such as the steam engine, dramatically changed the way that people lived and worked. Steam engines relied on the use of fossil fuels, particularly coal. This began an era of the widespread use of fossil fuels. 
3. Play video: “Coal, iron, and steam: The Industrial Revolution takes off”.
4. Launch quiz. You can let students raise their hands or say the answers out loud. Have students share why they chose that answer. Let them also know that some questions have more than one correct answer.
5. After playing the quiz game, discuss what they learned. 
   • What are some of the positive outcomes of the Industrial Revolution that we still benefit from today?
   • Who benefitted the most from industrialization? Who suffered more? Factory owners often made large amounts of money, while workers made low wages, and had to deal with health risks. 
   • What populations or groups were more vulnerable to harms from pollution, factory injuries, and rapid urbanization? Women, children, people with no education or training, and racialized workers were more vulnerable to harm. 
   • What long term environmental harms started during the Industrial Revolution that we're still dealing with today? We still burn coal to fuel factories, causing air pollution. Climate change is having effects on us now and will in the future. Abandoned oil wells, coal mines, and other industrial activities have left polluted land and water.  

Assembly line activity

1. A significant innovation of the late period of the Industrial Revolution was the development of assembly line manufacturing, where products or goods are produced by workers working along a motorized or automated line. Ask students if they can come up with an example of how an assembly line works. 
2. Now that students understand the effects of the Industrial Revolution on society, tell them they'll be making their own assembly line production, making paper cubes. 
3. Divide students into groups of 5-6 and give each group a copy of the “Assembly line” instructions, two glue sticks, one ruler and pencil, one pair of scissors, colouring crayons or markers, and 15 sheets of paper. 
4. Show the “How to make a 3D paper cube” video  demonstrating how to make the paper cubes.
5. Goal is for each group to make as many cubes as possible in 10 minutes.
6. Before they start, have students working as a team, making one cube together so they all know how it's made. Next, have them divide up the tasks creating an assembly line. Remind them to make sure they have the correct tools, like if one student is worker #1, they'll need a ruler and pencil. If there are less than 6 members in the group delete the final task of decorating. 
7. Suggest students test out how long each worker takes, they can elect to change the tasks so they each take equal time, like if measuring and drawing takes too long, have one worker measure and the next one draw the lines. If you do this you might need to combine tasks for other workers, like the gluing be done by just one worker. 
8. Once all the groups are ready start the assembly lines, and set a timer for 10 minutes. 
9. When the timer sounds, have each group count their cubes. Some cubes might be sub-standard and therefore rejected. 
10. As a class reflect on the experience. What parts of the system worked well? What was least efficient? What did it feel like to work under pressure to complete your task?
11. Ask students how they would feel if they had to do that for 12-14 hours a day, 6 days a week. Have them imagine that it was in a factory with dangerous machines, poor air quality, and minimal breaks. 
12. Overall, the Industrial Revolution and the burning of fossil fuels allowed a rapid increase in manufacturing of goods, making them cheaper and more accessible to many. But it came with consequences to health, to the environment with increased waste, air pollution and emissions of greenhouse gasses, along with rapid urbanization and changes to how people lived.