Nicole Amstutz

Lesson #1 (of 5)
Subject Matter Research #1
Topic: Cities in Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh

Part One (Adult Explanation)

Pittsburgh, one of the four main cities in Pennsylvania, was founded after the French and Indian War.

Built on three rivers, the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela, this place was the perfect place to settle as it

provided not just food and water, but also a hot spot for trade. First, various native American tribes settled here,

and then later, allowed the French to co-inhabit the land with them. However, the French started building forts,

or fortified army camps, along these rivers to restrict trade from other countries, like Britain. Also at this time

(the 1750’s), both countries were trying to claim as much land as they could to establish themselves in America.

The British controlled the eastern portion of PA and the French controlled New York and part of north-west PA

as well as some southern states around the Mississippi River. This left south-west PA up for grabs and both

countries felt entitled to it.

The French got their first, building Fort Duquesne to establish their ownership as well as a series of

smaller forts along the rivers. The British first tried sending General George Washington to warn them that if

they don’t surrender peacefully, there will be war. When the French did not move, the two countries went to

war, which is now called the French and Indian war. Unfortunately, France was fighting numerous battles in

Europe and could not provide enough manpower and resources to fight two wars at once. So, the French left the

area, blowing up Fort Duquesne in the process. Immediately, the British built Fort Pitt, after Prime Minister

William Pitt. Today, Fort Pitt has grown to be known as the city of Pittsburgh, which is the second biggest city

in Pennsylvania and the 56 biggest city in the U.S.

Pittsburgh is a lot more than its British founding though. Andrew Carnegie got his name here after

utilizing the abundance of coals mines to make cheap but durable steel. In 1901, the city produced somewhere

between 1/3 and a ½ of the nation’s steel output. Today, the city is called the Steel City because of its 300 some

steel buildings. The city is also called the city of bridges because it has 446 bridges, which is more than any city

in the world. Some other fun facts about Pittsburgh is that it manufactured the first Ferris wheel, which could
hold 2,160 people, and it is home to the first gas station, Big Mac, animation movie theater, T-Rex fossil, the

emoticon, and ketchup.

Part Two (Prior Knowledge)

 Prior Knowledge/Life Experience: The students have been learning about geography and have briefly

covered the placement of states and cities. So, the students should have prior knowledge of where

Pittsburgh is in PA as well as basic geographic features, like rivers, mountains, etc. The students also

may have been to Pittsburgh with their families and seen/been to the landmarks discussed and/or know

the history of the founding of Pittsburgh.

Part Three (Future Knowledge)

 Day Two: The students will learn about Harrisburg and how the city was founded, why it is the capital

of PA and some fun facts about the city. The students will use their knowledge of how cities can grow

from nothing, like in Pittsburgh, and apply it to the founding of Harrisburg.

 Day Three: The students will use their knowledge of change to understand how Hershey started as a

small chocolate factory and is now a world-renowned tourist attraction.

 Day Four: The students will use their prior knowledge of why cities are formed around rivers to help

them learn and understand the founding of Philadelphia. They will also use this prior knowledge to

compare and contrast the different ways the two cities utilize the river.

 Day Five: The travel journal stated on day one will prepare them for the final activity of being a travel

agent. Each journal contains their notes on the cities and on this day, the students can use them to help

them remember the differences and similarities between the cities. This will guide them in their

persuasive writing activity.

Part Four (Resource List)

 https://www.visitpittsburgh.com/about-pittsburgh/history/

 https://uncoveringpa.com/facts-about-pittsburgh

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh

 https://www.dw.com/en/pittsburgh-pa-where-henry-john-heinz-invented-ketchup/a-276279
 https://popularpittsburgh.com/threerivers/

 http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/pa-heritage/forts-at-forks-frontier-history-fort-pitt-

museum.html

 https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/32190

 https://www.wisegeek.com/why-is-pittsburgh-called-the-steel-city.htm

 https://historictheatres.org/blog/2016/11/14/behind-the-curtain-at-the-nickelodeon-americas-first-movie-

theatre/
 Nicole Amstutz/Pittsburgh, PA/Lesson #1 (of 5)/5 April 2019

I. Topic: An overview of Pittsburgh, including its founding, geography, landmarks, important people, and
what the city is known for.
II. Objective(s):
A. In their travel journals, TSWBAT summarize the city’s founding as well as 5 fun facts they
learned to a 5/6 accuracy.
III. Standard(s):
A. PA Economics Standard – 6.5.5.A – Describe how the availability of goods and services is
made possible by the work of members of the society.
B. PA Economics Standard – 6.2.5.E – Describe the impact of businesses opening and closing on
Pennsylvania economy.
C. PA Geography Standard – 7.3.4.A – Identify the physical characteristics of places and regions.
D. PA History Standard – 8.1.5.A – Identify and explain the influences of economic features on
continuity and change over time.
E. PA History Standard – 8.3.3.C – Identify and describe how continuity and change have
impacted U.S. history. • Belief systems and religions • Commerce and industry • Technology •
Politics and government • Physical and human geography • Social organizations
IV. Teaching Procedures:
A. Anticipatory Set (5 minutes): Ask if anyone has been to Pittsburgh. If any of the students raised
their hand, call on a few (2-3) students to summarize their visit in 3-4 sentences or less. Make
sure you stress that you are only calling on students with their hands raised. This will help you
figure out what the students already know about the city. Next, play this video with the volume
off (slide 2). As the video plays, introduce some of the landmarks (in order of the video): river of
bridges (there are 446 bridges in the city), how big the city is and the park that commemorates
the city’s founding, Heinz field (football stadium and named after Henry Heinz), and the
downtown area. Then skip from 1:37-2:47. Still on mute, point out the three rivers that flow
through Pittsburgh, and Point of View statue. Afterward, tell the students that they will be
learning about all these things and more!
B. Development (15 minutes): Hand out the travel journal. Tell the students to put their name on
the front and put their pencils down. Explain that for the next few days, they are going to go on a
road trip across Pennsylvania. In each city, they are going to write in their travel journal. The
front page is blank because you can decorate and color it any way you want, just outside of class.
Make sure they know they cannot be coloring it until either their teacher says they can or if they
are at home. Tell the students to turn to the first day in their journal, write Pittsburgh in the first
blank, and then put their pencils down and look forward. Throughout the lesson, make sure you
are reminding the students to raise their hand unless specified that they can shout out the
answers.
i. Start by showing a map of Pennsylvania (slide 3). Ask the students to name different
things they see (it’s a state which is made out of cities, there’s a lot of rivers near
Pittsburgh, it is the south-west of PA, Harrisburg has a star by it, etc). If they don’t say
these, give hints or point out features to try and probe them for these answers.
ii. Have the students turn their journals to the map page and place a dot where Pittsburgh is.
Then ask them to move their journals to the corner of their desks.
iii. Then show a map of Pittsburgh (slide 4). Point out the number of rivers in the city, all the
roads, and the number of bridges. Ask the students why the founders would make the city
on 3 rivers. Have the students say the three rivers names with you.
iv. Next show an aerial photo of Pittsburg (slide 5). Before though, ask the students to look
for the railway and the rivers. Remembering back to the video, ask the students how
Pittsburgh changed and how it stayed the same.
v. Use their answers to transition into the founding of Pittsburgh.
 1. Slide 6: The rivers were always here, but the people weren’t. The first people to
settle here were the Native Americans because the rivers provided food and water
for them. Then in the 1700s, the French came in and settled here too. However,
they started building forts along the rivers to restrict trade from other people.
They also wanted to claim this area and take it before the British could. Ask them
if they talked about the pilgrims and early America (specifically if they talked
about European countries owning/dividing the U.S.). If they haven’t, then just
briefly state that before the U.S. became its own country, other countries owned
parts of it. The British owned the eastern half of PA and the French owned the
north-west and southern states around the Mississippi River. The south-west
portion of PA was up for grabs and both countries wanted it.
2. Slide 7: So, when the British found out what the French were doing, they sent
George Washington as a spokesperson. He tried to ask the French to stand down
and leave peacefully, but they said no. However, not all the Indians were on
France’s side. In this picture, Washington is talking with Seneca leader, Guyasuta
about the future of the land.
3. Slide 8: So, the French and their allied Indians fought the British. In 1778, Fort
Duquesne, which was a camp they were fighting over, was burned down and the
British won. They immediately built a new fort, called Fort Pitt (the buildings in a
hexagonal shape), after the British Prime Minister, William Pitt. Today, it is now
called Pittsburgh. Have the students say Fort Duquesne with you.
vi. Ask for any questions. If you had to summarize the information due to lack of time, have
the students write down their questions in their travel journals. If there’s time at the end
we can answer them, but if not, encourage the students to do their own research at home.
vii. Have a student summarize the founding of Pittsburgh (show slide 9 with some key words
they might want to include). If they get stuck, provide the option to phone a friend. Then,
have the students write this in their travel journals. If the students need a model, either
write a 1-2 sentence summary on the board or just verbally repeat it over and over.
viii. Next tell the students that they are going to learn about the two names associated with
Pittsburgh: Steel City and the City of Bridges.
1. Steel City (slide 10): Ask the students if they know who this person is or has seen
his picture. Tell them it’s Andrew Carnegie who created one of the biggest steel
industries in the country in 1875. His steel was easy to produce because of the
coal mines (40% of the nation’s coal came from within 100 miles of Pittsburgh)
and it was durable but inexpensive, making it very popular with the nation. Over
time, the steel industry just kept growing as more people immigrated and needed
jobs, which also led to more building being built with steel. Today, the city has
over 300 building made out of steel and even has a ice hokey team named the
Pittsburgh Steelers.
2. Show the aerial picture of a steel plant from the 1920s. In the 1980s, steel was not
needed anymore (ww2 over, etc). Ask the students what they think happened to
the companies (they closed, and people lost their jobs). Show slide 11, which is a
picture of the Homestead stacks (which let out steam when steel was heated to
2,250 F). Tell the students that this is all that remains of the steel company we
saw in the aerial shot.
3. City of Bridges (slide 12): Pittsburgh has 446 bridges! That’s more than any city
in the world! (say this with a lot of enthusiasm and shock). The city has so many
because there are so many people living here that need to cross the rivers to either
get into downtown and/or out of the city. Have a student count the number of
bridges just in this tiny area. Also, don’t mention the giant rubber ducky. See if
the students notice it, and if they can’t, ask them if they see anything strange with
the picture.
 C. Development/Guided Practice (10 minutes): Tell the students that we are going to play a quick
game. Go over the instructions, modeling the first picture (slide 12). After, go through each slide,
having students guess how it relates to Pittsburgh and then telling them the right answer and any
relating history. If the students get too talkative between slides, use one of the class’ signals, like
“oh class” “oh yea” or “Mercer” “Mustangs.”
i. Directions and modeling: Tell the students you are going to play a series of images and
they have to call out what they think the picture is and how it relates to Pittsburgh. So, on
slide 13, make up this elaborate prediction that the T-Rex comes alive at night and so the
museum is famous because you can play fetch with it. When the students say, “no that’s
not real,” tell them that they are right and its actually because a T-Rex family lived right
there and this T-Rex marks the place of their home. After a little back and forth with the
students, tell them that the very first T-Rex fossil was found in Pittsburgh, and it now
stands 70 feet tall in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Ask the students if they
remember who Carnegie was.
ii. Slide 14: The first motion picture cinema in 1905. It was called Nickelodeon because the
people paid a nickel to watch a 15-minute movie in an ‘odeon’, which is the Greek term
for an enclosed theater.
iii. Slide 15: The Big Mac was made in the first McDonald’s restaurant by Jim Delligatti in
1967 and sold nationwide in 1968. It actually had 2 prior names: the aristocrat and the
blue ribbon burger. Ask the students if they can imagine going to McDonalds and asking
for an aristocrat. Also, ask if anyone’s been to the Grove City McDonald’s because it is
owned by the owner’s family, the Delligatti’s.
iv. Slide 16: The first emoticon was developed by Carnegie Mellon University in 1982. It
was a smiley face because Scott Falman wanted a way for readers to know when the
author was joking.
v. Slide 17: Henry Heinz invented ketchup in 1876 by adapting a Chinese recopied for so-
called cat-sup. Ask the students what number is usually on ketchup bottles (57). Tell
them that Heinz just made the number up because it had a nice ring to it.
D. Independent Practice (5 minutes): Project slide 18 which has a quick recap of the information
we talked about (this is to help the students remember and help them with spelling). Tell the
students that they are going to complete their travel journal for their day in Pittsburgh. This
included 5 fun facts they learned and if they would visit again. As they write, circulate the room
to answer any questions, keep students on task, and see what they learned and retained (i.e. are
they having trouble remembering what was covered, writing about something incorrectly, etc.).
To get the students attention for the closure, use one of the class’ signals, like “oh class” “oh
yea” or “Mercer” “Mustangs.”
i. If the students have a tendency to lose items/papers, have them put their journals in a
special place in the classroom so they won’t lose it for Monday.
E. Closure (5 minutes): Finish the lesson with one last video on Pittsburgh (slide 19). This time
have the students call out buildings or landmarks they see that we discussed. Once the video is
over, asked if they had a fun time exploring Pittsburg. Also, tell them that on Monday, they will
be leaving the western half of Pennsylvania and traveling to Harrisburg, the capital of PA. If the
students exceeded your expectations and followed all of the rules, give them a class point in
class dojo before you leave.
V. Materials:
A. PowerPoint Presentation
B. Travel Journal
VI. Adaptations/Plan Modifications: Throughout the development and guided practice, I will keep a close
eye on the time. When I get to the history and the founding of Pittsburgh, and I see that I have more time
than expected, then I will go deeper into the content. However, if I see that I have less time than
expected, I will simplify the content but still making sure I am getting the story and main ideas across. If
I have time at the end, then I can take questions and elaborate on anything I said earlier. Then if the
 students finish their travel journal entry before everyone else, they can color/design their book until the
rest of their classmates’ finish. On the other hand, there are three students with learning disabilities, two
of which are high functioning and the third may need a peer tutor. During the lesson, the co-teacher and
I will circulate the room, keeping all of the students on task and paying attention. During the
independent practice and the small note-taking section in the middle, I will make sure one of us is
constantly walking by these students so that we can help them with any problems, from helping them
gather their thoughts to writing their thoughts for them.
VII. Evaluation:
A. Formative: While the students are completing their travel journal, the teacher will circulate the
room, looking at students’ answers to see if they remembered the historical facts and/or
interesting things Pittsburgh is known for. This will not be collected nor graded. This is just a
performance monitoring activity.
B. Summative: There will be no summative assignment.
VIII. Reflection
A. Write as assessment of the students’ performance and mastery in terms of each stated
objective. List each objective’s evaluation separately
In their travel journals, TSWBAT summarize the city’s founding as well as 5 fun
facts they learned to a 5/6 accuracy.
The students succeeded this objective. As I walked around the classroom as the students
wrote, I saw that all the students were able to write a 1 sentence summary and 5 fun facts.
Depending on their level of writing, some of the students wrote a full sentence and some
students wrote one-word answers down, but when I asked them, they could tell me what
the words meant.
B. Write a self-evaluation including explanation for success or lack of it. Discuss: What
changes might have produced better results and could be used in subsequent lessons?
i. I really like how the lesson went because the students participated and were well
listeners. However, there were some aspects that could have gone better, like my tone of
voice, how to get more students to participate, and time. During the whole time, I felt like
I was ‘dumbing’ down my speech and talking to them like 1st graders (which is my other
field) instead of fourth graders. I do not know if the students picked this up, but I was a
little self-conscience about it. Also, I quickly found out that the same students would
always raise their hand to answer and the others would not. I tried to call on a variety of
students, but I do not think I did this enough because I was short on time and wanted to
get through the lesson. Ideally, I would have liked more time to answer student’s
questions and go through the content for thoroughly, but I think I did a good job in pacing
myself and prompting students for answer.
C. Explain what specific changes were implemented from your professor’s suggestions prior
to teaching and the results (if suggestions were not taken, explain your rationale).
i. The only changes I made was making the connection between Pittsburgh being called the
city of steel with the Pittsburgh Steelers. During my lesson, the students made this
connection before I could bring it up though. My professor also suggested to label my
map to show which parts of PA the British and French owned. I didn’t do this suggestion
because I did not want students to focus on this or get confused with the other maps of
Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh I had on the PowerPoint. So, I did not add these details
because all I wanted the students to take away from this picture was that Pittsburgh was
up for grabs and the French claimed it first.
D. Explain what specific changes were implemented from your cooperating teacher’s
suggestions and the results (if suggestions were not take, explain your rationale).
i. My cooperating teacher did not have any suggestions beforehand. After looking at her
evaluation, I will implement some of her suggestions into my second lesson.