PIONEER SCIENCE ON THE PRAIRIE: Exploring our Roots Cathy Ezrailson, Associate Professor of Science Education University of South Dakota

Goals: Science on the Prairie 1.Native American science, engineering and the boarding school era 2.Pioneer science outside as well as inside the school 3.Agriculture and survival 4.Typical resources in schools during the 19 th century 5.Intercontinental RR and the industrialization of the plains 6.Rise of the high school 7.Rise of the science laboratory 8.Teaching in the rural vs urban community 9.The minority teacher – a portrait 10.Teacher preparation and rules for schools.

Goals: Science on the Prairie 1.Native American science, engineering and the boarding school era 2.Pioneer science outside as well as inside the school 3.Agriculture and survival 4.Typical resources in schools during the 19 th century 5.Intercontinental RR and the industrialization of the plains 6.Rise of the high school 7.Rise of the science laboratory 8.Teaching in the rural vs urban community 9.The minority teacher – a portrait 10.Teacher preparation and rules for schools.

Storytelling Education in Native American “schools” employed effective means of transferring knowledge between generations – traditionally done through storytelling.

Applied Science on the Plains Indian Engineering: Tipi Construction

Native Americans were forcibly removed from the eastern woodlands and relocated to the Southern and Central Great Plains, missionaries also followed. By the 1830s, missionaries were present in many parts of the region. Indian boarding schools, a primary focus of federal Indian policy beginning in the late 1870s, were designed as instruments for the assimilation of Native Americans into American society and were established on and off reservations throughout the United States, especially in the Great Plains. Boarding schools first appeared on reservations in 1877, but, beginning in 1879, policy makers seeking higher potential for assimilation channeled their efforts into building them off the reservations.

Pioneer Life: Applied Science and Math on the Prairie Kitchen Measurement Chart

At the house site, grass was removed, the soil was excavated one to two feet (30 to 60 cm) below ground level; this reduced the height of the walls and the amount of sod that had to be cut. The ground that would form the house floor was moistened and then tamped with a fencepost to flatten and harden it. Before the sod blocks were cut, the grass was mown short or burned off and the surface was scored with a cutter. Then, the blocks could then be removed with a spade, producing rough non-uniform blocks. Blocks could also be cut with a plow. In building the walls, sod blocks were laid one course at a time; each course was completed before the next was begun. Walls were two or three ”wythes” thick; the vertical joints were staggered to avoid creating a direct path through the wall for wind and vermin. To bind the widths and increase the stability of the wall, every second, third, or fourth course was laid crosswise. Sod homestead Tripp, SD, circa 1870’ Early sod houses were roofed with sod.

Agriculture Arithmetic was fundamental to farmers who must survey and measure precisely for building construction and provided women the ability to measure proper quantities and to prepare and preserve food for the winter – also an exercise in kitchen chemistry. 16

Built in 1864, the first permanent public schoolhouse in South Dakota was located in Vermillion, above the Missouri River. Amos Shaw, its first public school teacher taught approximately 30 pupils, receiving compensation from parents of $2.50 per pupil per year. He was replaced by a Miss Baker, who received the same rate of pay—highly unusual for a female teacher of this era. Curricula in this early school included excerpts from Pilgrim’s Progress, The Bible and included the McGuffey Second Reader.

Formal schooling, based on models started in the East, educated children with science examples in math and reading and with a curriculum that would later include formal science courses.

Mathematics teachers introduced blackboards into the United States around By the 1840s, these were used for teaching a wide range of subjects Arithmetic Card, about 1830 Numeral Frame By the 1850s, books had become much cheaper and texts more uniform. This cover is from a book in a series of math texts by Joseph Ray ( ), the first arithmetic text appeared in 1834,

Progress and the Snake Oil Salesman

Pictured is a High School Science Lab in an Eastern Girls School, 1899.

By 1918, half of all teachers were between the ages of 16 and 20, 38% were 21 to 25 years old. There were several tasks that all had to be done by one teacher: helping the first graders recite a poem, taking care of a sick child, reading a book with the 8th graders, all at the same time. Early prairie teachers were paid 10 or 15 dollars each month. The schools only went up to 8th grade, and 8th grade work was often more difficult than today’s college level! The one room schoolhouse teachers had many expectations. These included things such as filling lamps, cleaning out chimneys, gathering a scuttle of coal, and making pens for the students the exact length the pupils needed. The teachers also had to follow multiple regulations and rules. They weren’t allowed to be married or have any relationship or they would be fired. If they smoked, drank liquor, or visited anywhere where these things would take place they would also be fired. However, if a teacher taught for more than 5 years, her pay increased by 25 cents, which was a decent improvement back then.

Portrait of a Teacher: Daniel Alexander Payne (Past President of Wilberforce University in Ohio) and the first African-American college president in the United States born to free parents, opened his own school at the age of 19. He wrote about educating himself and his students in his autobiography the Recollections of Seventy Years. My first school consisted of three children, for each of whom I was paid fifty cents a month. I also taught three adult slaves at night, thus making my monthly income from teaching only three dollars...The next thing that arrested my attention was botany... Descriptive chemistry, natural philosophy, and descriptive astronomy followed in rapid succession... My researches in botany gave me a relish for zoology; but as I could never get hold of any work on this science I had to make books for myself. This I did by killing such insects, toads, snakes, young alligators, fishes, and young sharks as I could catch. I then cleaned and stuffed those that I could, and hung them upon the walls of my schoolroom.

Most schooling on the Great Plains was done in one- room schoolhouses. By teaching students of various ages and abilities together using a method known as "mutual instruction" or the "Bell-Lancaster method" invented by Dr. Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster who both independently developed it about This method used more adept pupils as 'helpers' to the teacher, passing on the information they had learned to other, less able students. 25 Common schools had rejected the “European-style” curriculum as it was considered impractical for preparing students for skills suited to rural life. In the mid to late 1800s, teachers began to receive more training and took tests for certification. In more populated areas, Normal Schools emerged to offer courses of preparation, ranging from a summer school course to a 2-year program and later a 4-year program. Teacher Preparation And Curricula

Survey

How school today is different than in the 1800s (Or was it)? 1.In the 19th and early 20th centuries, one room schoolhouses were the norm in rural areas. A single teacher taught grades one through eight together.. The room was heated by a single wood stove. 2.There was no transportation to get to school. Most schoolhouses were built to serve students living within 4 or 5 miles, which was considered close enough for them to walk 3. At some schools, boys and girls entered through separate doors; they were also kept separate for lessons. 4. The school year was much shorter in the school year. Students attended school for about 132 days (the standard today is 180) Attendance was just 59 percent. School typically started at 9 am and wrapped up at 2 pm, one hour for recess and lunch, which was called “nooning.” 5. Teachers taught reading, writing, arithmetic, history, grammar, rhetoric, and geography. (Science later became a separate subject). Students would memorize lessons, and the teacher would bring them to the front of the room as a class to—so the teacher could correct them on the spot.

For many, education ended after just eighth grade; in order to graduate, students would have to pass a final exam. ARITHMETIC (Time, 1 1/2 hours) 1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic. 2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold? 3. months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals? 4. Find the interest of $ for 8 months and 18 days at 7 per cent. 5. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per in.? 6. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods? 7. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt. Excerpts from the 8 th Grade Exam

ORTHOGRAPHY (Time, 1 1/2 hours) 1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, Phonetic, Orthography, Etymology, Syllabication? 2. What are elementary sounds? How classified? 3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, Subvocals, Diphthong, Cognate, Linguals? 4. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each. 5. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, Dis, Mis, Pre, Semi, Post, Non, Inter, Mono, Super 6. Mark diacritically and divided into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last. 7. Use the following correctly in sentences: Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vein, raze, raise, rays. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

GRAMMAR (Time, one hour) 1. Give the nine rules for the use of Capital Letters. 2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications. 3. Define: Verse, Stanza and Paragraph. 4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give the Principal Parts of do, lie, lay, and run. 5. Define Case. Illustrate each case. 6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation Write a composition of about 150 words and show there in that you understand thempractical use of the rules of grammar.

Thank you – questions?