Primary+Source+Awesomeness+(Robert+et+James)

Robert McCarthy and James Beidler __Primary Sources__ PPT:

__Background__ A primary source is an original source that is often defined by what it lacks, bias and commentary. Some examples of primary sources include pictures, works of fiction, a hand-written document, or even a live specimen. Primary sources work great in research projects, experiential learning assignments, for making cross-curricular connections, and can help teach students how to think. Primary sources can also help students learn how to draw their own conclusions and seek truths rather than just opinions.

__21____st__ __Century__ Primary sources provide a great connection to modern skills. First and foremost, understanding primary sources helps with media literacy. People familiar with what makes a primary source are more likely to be able to separate opinion from fact when presented to them in the media. Many primary sources are also digitized. Projects using digitized primary sources help expose students to modern resource retrieval. Students may also learn to approach the world from a more fact-based objective perspective. The ability to separate fact from opinion and place a higher value on facts can help people find common ground with other people that have different viewpoints and backgrounds. Through learning to rely on primary resources, students can draw their own conclusions about other people and their situations without having to rely on often negatively-biased opinions.

__Examples__ #1: Using primary sources to develop a history of technology. This could be considered a tool of the **scientific** disciplines, but is very much cross-curricular using skills from **history** and **mathematics**. Our example has students using primary documents and patent literature to develop the technology of the history. This example emphasized learning not only the whats, but the whys and hows. The goal is to help students learn how great inventors thought when they came up with their technologies.

#2: The second example focuses on **history** and **English**. This example uses a quote, in this case a quote from Confucius, to draw out further discussion from students. The goals of using the quote as a primary resource is to create greater understanding of where Confucius was coming from and how is view of the world influenced cultures both historically and presently.

#3: This example uses a primary source reading and images from a **historical** event, the Holocaust. The goal of this example is to help immerse students in an event that can be hard to understand in our current place. The Holocaust, in particular, has likely been taught to the students before, but without the primary documents the students may not have been able to comprehend the severity and darkness of the event.

#4: The last example looks at primary resource from a more **mathematical** perspective. In this example students are asked to use primary sources to reproduce the process of discovery for an original math concept by a historical mathematician. As in the first example, one of the goals of this lesson is to help students learn how to think like a mathematician by seeing the steps and processes that a mathematician used to reach their discovery.

__Links__ __[]__  (weather for science, transportation for math)

What is a scientific primary source __[]__

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Science Primary Sources __[]__  Images from the history of medicine __[]__  The Galileo project. Primary source documents tell a story. __[]__  Primary source documents related to the history of computing. __[]__  Selected classic papers from the history of chemistry. __[]__ Gliddens patent for barbed wire. A complete lesson around a primary source document.

Lesson collections: __[]__  Lesson plans to connect primary sources to today. __[]__  Lessons created around the primary source documents in the National Archives.

What are primary sources: __[]__ __[]__

Teaching with primary sources: __[]__

__Works Cited__

Spielvogel, J. Jackson, PH.D. __ World History __ // McGraw Hill/Glencoe. // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">New York, New York. 2008.

<span style="font-family: Arial,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">Williams, L. (2010, November 3). <span style="font-family: Arial,serif; text-decoration: none;">// Primary secondary and tertiary sources // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">. Retrieved from http://library.uncw.edu/guides/primary_secondary_and_tertiary_sources __Templates__


 * **Requirement** || **Description** || **Feedback** || **Potential Points** || **Earned Points** ||
 * **Primary Sources** || At least three correctly identified and appropriately used primary sources ||  || 15 ||   ||
 * **Historical Context** || Approximately three page description of historical context and the history of development ||  || 45 ||   ||
 * **Logic** || Explanation of logical processes used in developing this technology ||  || 15 ||   ||
 * **Final Product** || Explanation of the final product in terms of equations and laws of physics ||  || 15 ||   ||
 * **Writing and Formatting** || Proper format for citations; proper grammar, spelling, and formatting ||  || 10 ||   ||