One Battle out of Twenty

This week our class learned about the twenty different battles during the Civil War through an interactive scavenger hunt. The two essential questions for this lesson were ,who was the ultimate victor in each of the theaters of war: East, West, Naval? and, what are some commonalities you can identify in the reasons for the results of the battles? We started the lesson by each getting assigned one battle out of the twenty. The battle I was assigned was Battle of Vicksburg.

 

 

An Image of my battle, Battle of Vicksburg

 

 

After being assigned our battle we had to research them and find reliable sources that would help give the battle name, location and date of battle, the victor of the battle, west,east or naval theater, and two bullets that helped explain the reason for the battle. We put all our information onto a google doc and then created a shareable link and bitly to make a QR code reader for the rest of the class to to scan into. We then collaborated with other students and placed each battle in a different spot of the school. We then ran around the school scanning in and learning about each different battle. After finishing the scavenger hunt, our class created a padlet page. Each student had to write two posts on the padlet trying to explain who was the “ultimate” victor in each theater and if the ultimate victor was winning the whole time.

After learning about each battle it was clear that the Union army dominated the western and naval theater where as the Confederacy dominated the eastern theater mostly. The Union surrounded the Confederacy and had ships ready which helped them win many battles. For example some of the battle the Union won were Battle of Fort Henry and Battle of Shiloh and Battle of Vicksburg. In some of these battles the Unions bombarded the Confederacy until they surrendered because of casualties. The Confederacy dominated in the east theater and had victories such as Battle of Fort Sumter, and battle of Chancellorsville.  

I really enjoyed this lesson. I thought the Scavenger hunt was a creative and fun way to learn the lesson. It was fun searching about the different battles and creating the QR reader. Sometimes it was hard to connect to the wifi while running around the school, but once it connected it was no problem.