HOME                     INFORMATION ABOUT THE DVD - "VOICES OF THE LAND"      Article in Skylands Magazine

LESSON PLAN BELOW
 

Geology, Geography, History and Sociology all come together in a 55 minute in-depth look at the very land we live on.   The video expands its view of New Jersey from a core town in the ridge and valley region, so that in the end, a greater comprehensive understanding of the entire tri-state area is  possible.   Essential for every school and library in New Jersey.  Suggested for Pennsylvania and New York. 

Even before the people, the land had a voice. It left a legacy in stone; hard granite, laid down with ignious morphology.
Resulting mountains sank beneath a great sea and limestone beds, hundreds of feet thick formed.  After millions of years, the sea bottom surfaced and was worn down to ridges of a smaller scale.  Then there was ice.  When the glaciers retreated, fertile plains and teaming swamps were formed.  Many more thousands of years passed and then the first peoples appeared;  primitive peoples who hunted the bounty feeding off the plains. A more advanced culture flourished until about 3000 years ago. A civilization of native people migrated in (we think) from the West in the Ohio Valley. These became the Lenapi, a part of the Delaware culture. In this part of New Jersey, a geological feature allows the Delaware River to cut through the Appalachian Ridge forming  a  “Water Gap”, an ideal conduit for trade.  And the people multiplied.  European cultures arrived.  Copper mines and iron mines were tapped early for lucrative trade in a budding empire. Others came to seek freedom of worship. A new nation was forged out of the landscape.  The story continues to unfold. 

Local historians, an archaeologist, a geologist and a Lenape Indian provide insight to the colorful development of this land  along the Delaware River. Geological underpinnings influenced the arrival  of many different cultures over time, sometimes with confilct and always with  change.  This video exposes a warm pride in the challenging crucible of New Jersey’s past. 
A NOTE TO TEACHERS
This program is presented in segments of  five to ten minutes.  Any one, two or three segments (ie: the Geology, the Paleo Culture, or the Woodland Culture) can become the basis of a class on New Jersey History for virtually any age group.  The key is a lesson plan.  This is why we are providing one FREE  on our web site.  The lesson plan is laid out in segments, just like the video.  Segments of the DVD correspond to segments of the lesson plan.   The lesson plan can then be easily used in reference to the entire video ... or simply for the segment you want to present in your class.   Take a look at our other offerings from the world wide web!   The saga of the U.S.S. Houston is an incredible tale (and
true) for WWII historians.  The travelogue of the Homeless Genius will bring both a chuckle and some understanding of the life of a lonely homeless man.  Buzz Creek is now the home of all Grade-A productions.

A LESSON PLAN for the European Settlement of America FOLLOWS THESE NOTES.
If you develop a lesson plan for the geology or the archaeology segments, please let us know. We can make it available to other teachers right here.  Thanks!

Debra Natyzak, Executive Producer,  Introduces the video and encourages us to take the time to listen to the land about us as it speaks to us.  Listen to “The Voices of The Land”.... Sr. Miriam Therese MacGillis, OP of Genesis Farm presents a brief perspective of the land and its relationship to the people through history......Robert Canace, New Jersey eological Survey, talks about the geological time clock and rocks 1.5 billion years old and of later geologic occurences such as the lacier that was 2 miles thick at one point ...... Glenn Wershing,  Archaeologist, speaks about the first people to come here 12,000 years BCE,  the Archaic Indians in 8000 BCE and the Woodland Culture (Lenape, Delaware, et al) about 1,000 BCE .... James “Lone Bear” Revey a Lenape Indian tells us the Delaware tribes were likely derived from the Algonquin of the Mid-West as their linquistic patterns are similar. He tells of the trade that developed and that culminated in the Indians “trading out”of  their land and moving westward.  From the narrator, we learn of Chief Lappawainsoe, the Lenape Chief who was infuriated by a slick deal in 1737 for Pennsylvania land cut by the Penn family.  Murderous raids in NE Pennsyslvania and NW New Jersey from 1755-1758 were a result ..... Dennis Bertland, Archetectural Historian, puts the settlers into groups. The Dispersed Farmsteads, The Group Settlements (near grist or lumber mills), The Community Settlements (based on religious structure), and the Iron Forges.  He talks about the log cabins, the Quaker stone houses, the English box framed houses and the Georgian style .... Grace VanHorn, a local historian and descendent of early settlers tells about the formation of communities in the 18th and 19th centuries, usually around a church ..... Olga Baley Guiler, a local historian tells about some of the governmental development and relates the story of the “White Pilgrim” who dressed all in white and rode a white horse to get attention, because he was not such a great preacher.  He preached one sermon in the town, fell ill of smallpox and died. He was buried a good distance from the other graves to avoid an epidemic among the dead. ... Marion Kerr Vitale, descendent of a Scotch Presbyterian family, evokes the warmth of community and shared hardships in the early part of this century.
“It is good”, she says, “to have a place we can call home”.

 Drew Lerz, Narrator, ends the film with this statement:
“Old stone foundations, paleo points and abandoned mines tell us of a people who had  walked this very same land.  We must realize it is essential for us to preserve our heritage  for those who follow us and for those who follow them.”

LESSON PLAN

Voices of the Land

Study Guide and Student Activities

Prepared by Robert Longo and Fran Schlenoff,

Social Sciences Department, Sparta High School




Main Concepts:

  1. Relationship of people to the land of Sussex and Warren Counties
  1. Need for patience, openness, and understanding to be aware of "Voices of the Land"
  2. Spaceship Earth - new way to view our relationship to the earth taken from the space program, but actually calls back to the views of the Native Americans.
  3. Geological makeup of the Sussex/Warren County area
    1. Limestone deposits make the area prone to agriculture due to the neutralization of acids in the soil
    2. Fault lines in the area make metal ores available to the population to develop
  1. Human Habitation of the Sussex/Warren County Area
  1. Earliest people - 12,000 years ago, Paleo-Indians
  2. Archaic Culture - 8000 to 1000 B.C.E. Highest concentration of settlements
  3. Woodland Indians - 1000 B.C.E. to 1600 A.D.
    1. Woodland Indians were an agricultural people
    2. Woodland Indians had specialization of production clustered around the resources they needed
    3. Arrowhead factory at Dark-Moon site
  1. European settlement
    1. Dutch settlers came down the Wallkill River and down the Delaware Water Gap to Great Meadows area around 1654
    2. Other Europeans included English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Germans, Dutch
  1. Conflict Between Europeans and Lenape
    1. European encroachment pushes Lenape westward into Pennsylvania
    2. "Walking Purchase" of 1737
    3. French and Indian War / Hunt-Swartout Raid
  1. Effects of the Europeans on the Environment
    1. farming
    2. iron foundries
    3. By the mid-1800's, the North Jersey forests were all cut down, due to farming and iron mining. What forests exist today have grown back since then.
    4. Distinct rural way of life
    5. Post-World War II: Area begins to become suburb of New York City, Northeast New Jersey cities.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
      Quiz on Lenape people:
       
    1. Lenapes supported themselves by 
        a. Hunting and fishing

        b. Trade with other tribes

        c. Developing and growing crops in prepared fields

  1. d. Gathering food that grew wild in the forest
      e. All of the above.
    1. Lenape got arrowheads, spears and knives by

      2.  

       

      a. Making them themselves

      b. Getting them from certain skilled craftsmen who made things in large quantities.

      c. Capturing them in battle from other more advanced tribes

    2. Lenape chiefs
        a. Had near-dictatorial authority
      b.Were similar to European kings

      c. ruled mostly by consent of the rest of the people

  1. d. had no power at all.
    1. Lenape women were:
    1. considered the equal of men
    2. considered inferior to men
    3. of higher status than men

 
 
        Performance Task based on Voices of the Land

        Students will identify and evaluate the accuracy of stereotypes. This will be done by conducting a survey of students in the class designed to show their perception of what the Lenape people's way of life was like.

        The survey may be devised by the class and may be set up according to the following topics format:

        Political organization

        Family structure

        Technology

        Religious beliefs

        Ways of making a living

        Once the survey is completed, students should tabulate the results and use this information to construct a consensus of what the Lenape society was like, according to their view. Students will then compare the profile of the Lenape made up from their survey to factual information taken from the video, Voices of the Land, and other sources.

        This project coincides with the New Jersey State Core Curriculum Standards as follows:

        # 6.4.8, 6.4.5, 6.4.7, 6.5.4, 6.5.7, 6.5.3, 3.12, 4.2.9, 4.3.6, 4.12.9. 
         

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