Katherine Chanler

May 25th, 2016

New York City Transportation
Picturing the Past
Lesson 2
Revised Lesson
Essential Question: What modes of transportation did the first inhabitants of New York,
the Lenape Indians, use? What is the connection between the environment and culture to
transportation?
Aim: We are learning to identify the modes of transportation used by the first inhabitants
of Manhattan and make interpretations of their experiences based on what we learned of
their environment and ways of getting around it.
Content:
When Henry Hudson arrived in Manhattan 400 years ago there were about 300600 people living on the island for thousands of years. They were mostly Lenape people
who spoke Algonquin and had a rich religious and spiritual life connected to the land
around them. Other native people also inhabited or traveled through the region. They
hunted deer and elk, fished trout and eel, collected shellfish and planted gardens. Lenape
communities moved by the season for hunting and farming, taking care not to use up all
of the natural resources in one place. In the winter, small Lenape communities of
Manhattan would join larger villages situated in areas around the Bronx and Queens to
spend the coldest months in community long houses.
Manhattan was a peopled wilderness with several different kinds of forests as well
as cleared fields for farming. Lower Manhattan had beaches, woods, small salt ponds,
marshes and a large fresh water pond near todays Foley Square called the Collect Pond.
The mode of transportation used by the Lenape people depended on the season, in
warmer months they walked on foot using trails, and dry streambeds or if traveling by
water used dugout canoes. In the winter the Lenape used snowshoes and sleds for
traveling over snow. There were no horses in Manhattan before the Europeans arrived.
Today Lenape people drive cars and ride the subway to get around New York City.
Standards:
NYC DOE K-8 Social Studies Scope and Sequence:
Grade Two: My Community and Other Communities
2.6 Identifying continuities and changes over time help understand historical
developments.
2.6b New York City has changed over time and will continue to change in the
future.
2.7 Cause-and-effect relationships help us recount events and understand historical
development.
2.7a New York City in the 1600s was inhabited by various Native peoples.

Materials: Word web chart, smart board, Slideshow presentation with illustrations,
photography, and video.
Lesson Tasks:
Pass out Turn and Talk Notes Work sheet to students. Each student will need a surface to
write on and a pencil for this lesson. Prepare materials before beginning the lesson to
save time.

Introduction: Review our own experiences. 5 minutes

Review from lesson 1. Making
connections between different ways of
moving through the environment (in this
case, the city or built environment) and
ones experience of it.
Call student to the meeting area.
Lets review some of our ideas about
transportation from our worksheets. I
gathered all of the information from your
worksheets to create one chart for our
whole class.
The first column lists all the different
modes of transportation we have used.
The second column is a list of the things that we have seen while traveling through the
city.
Take a moment to quietly look over our classs list. What are some of the things all of this
information makes you think of?
(Removed Turn and Talk)
Call on a few students to share their interpretations.
And sum it up:
This list informs us that we live in a big modern city. I wonder how our list would
be different if we lived in a different place or time.
Now imagine what life would be like, if in place of a modern city, we lived in a
forest. And in place of roads, there were only trails. When you imagine the forest, what
mode of transportation do you think you would be using, and what would you see?
(Removed Turn and Talk)

Development: A look back to the past. 15 minutes

Today we are going to practice taking a few notes during the presentation with
places to stop, think, and jot. We are going to only write down a few words or ideas, but
we are not going to worry about spelling or writing whole sentences. These notes will
help us remember the things we want to talk about in our group discussions and help us
remember our learning during the presentation.
****We are only writing during the Think and Jot stopping points. When I am talking,
you are not writing. You are paying attention to the slide and to what I am saying.
Remember we will have plenty of talk time during our group discussion work after the
presentation.****

(Removed Turn, Talk, and Jot Slide for the sake of time and pace of presentation.
Provide all the talk time after the presentation in small group discussions.)

The first slide of the Lenape presentation is a short video clip from the Mannahatta
Project.

Let us imagine traveling around Manhattan more than 400 years ago.
What do you think we would see? What did New York City look like when only
Native Americans lived on the island? Lets watch this short video clip to get some
ideas. **The narrator speaks very quickly so try to pay close attention.**

Mannahatta Project Video

(3 min. clip)
.

Think and Jot No. 1

What did New York City look like 400 years ago? Who were the people that first lived
here? Think and Jot notes from the video clip.
Focus back on me. We are going to group share at the end. Lets look at the next slide.
Slide 1:
I would like to underline two key
pieces of information in this text
that help me better understand the
Lenape people.
Their mode of transportation was
affected by the season and by the
landscape.
There were no horses here before
Europeans arrived.

Think and Jot No. 2

What have we learned about the Lenape people so far? Think and Jot.
Focus back on me. We are going to group share at the end. Lets look at the next slide.

Slide 3:

Traveling by waterway was sometimes the

fastest way to get around, since there were no
roads, only trails or footpaths. This is an
example of a dugout canoe. It is carved, or
dug out from a tree trunk.

Think and Jot No. 3

How did Lenape Indians travel by water? How did they make this mode of
transportation? Turn and jot.
Focus back on me. We are going to group share at the end. Lets look at the next slide

Slide 4:
This painting shows a Lenape village on Staten
Island during the winter. They used sleds built
from wood to transport their goods over snow.
Some people also raised dogs as pack animals.

Slide 5:
Native people designed special shoes for walking
over deep snow, called snowshoes. When you wear
them, the large size of the shoe helps to keep your
feet from sinking down, making it easier to walk
across snow.

Think and Jot No. 4

What special modes of transportation did the Lenape use during the snowy, winter
season? Why were they important? Think and jot.

Culmination: Group Activity 15 minutes

After I give instructions we will meet in our Transportation Lesson groups from last
week.
Each group will use their notes and discuss what you have learned about the different
modes of transportation the Lenape people used in Manhattan and the surrounding New
York area more than four hundred years ago.
Think about the environment at the time. As a
group you will make some educated guesses,
or interpretations about how transportation
relates to the Lenape Indian experience of
their environment.
Put the group worksheet on the smart board
to model how to begin the worksheet.
Remember we did a similar exercise with our
own experience. Think back to our chart of
how we got to school and the things we saw.
Imagine how a Lenape family traveled and
think of things they may have seen or may
have felt.
Model one example of how to make a cultural connection based on what we have
learned. Use specific language like, Since we have learned that there were no roads and
the Lenape people mostly walked to get around, this makes me think, or at least I can

make a good guess or inference that the Lenape must have been very familiar with their
surroundings because when I walk I travel much more slowly. So I can see much more
than if I was speeding down a highway at 60 miles per hour.
Call for the groups to meet and pass out a group worksheet and instructions.
First share your notes with your team members. Have a discussion about some inferences
your can begin to make about life for the Lenape people before Europeans arrived. As a
group you will identify four different modes of transportation used by the Lenape and
make four different inferences or educated guesses, based on what you have learned
today.
During this time the teachers will circulate to each group, listening in on conversations
about the topic of transportation and the Lenape Indian experience based on their notes
from the lesson.
Whole Class Wrap Up: 10 minutes
Students return to the meeting area, but this time sit in a large circle to face each other.
Call on one member form each group to share one thing they wrote in their group
worksheets.
Final Word: We are able to better understand what life was like for the Lenape people
when we think about their environment and the way they traveled.
Assessment:
Collect and review students notes and group worksheets. Compile a set of inferences
made for each mode of transportation identified. Hold a follow up discussion of the
students ideas and perhaps dispel any misconceptions.

Resources:
Online:
https://welikia.org/
http://www.bigorrin.org/lenape_kids.htm
http://www.lenapelifeways.org/lenape2.htm#travel
http://www.thelenapecenter.com/
Books:
On This Spot: An Expedition Back Through Time By: Susan B. Goodman

The Native American Peoples of New York City By:

Richard Tan

What did New York City look like 400 What have we learned about the
years ago? Who were the people
Lenape people so far?
that first lived here?

Name:_________________________

Modes of Transportation:
Lenape Indians in New York before 1609

How did Lenape Indians travel by

water and how did they make this
mode of transportation?

What special modes of transportation

did the Lenape use during the
snowy, winter season? Why were
they important?

Mode of Transportation

Cultural Connection

A way to travel.

How it relates to their

experience of place.

Names:________________________________________________

Transportation in New York City

Lenape Communities Before 1609

Mode of Transportation

Cultural Connection

A way to travel.

How it relates to their

experience of place.