Before You Take Your Virtual Field Trip . . .
List modes of transportation
Ask students to think of all the ways people and goods are moved around town, the state, the country, and the world. Consider making a t-chart that sorts these modes into past and present. Does a stagecoach make the list? If not, ask students to share what they know about stagecoaches.
Discuss the big question
Ask for student ideas about the big question, “How did the Concord Coach change the United States?” What are ways they think a stagecoach could impact a whole country? Record student thinking. Review their ideas after the virtual field trip. Update or add to the list based on knowledge acquired during the trip.
During Your Virtual Field Trip . . .
Organize facts and ideas
An optional graphic organizer is provided to help students identify and expand upon the three key ideas addressed during the trip. As they listen and watch, students can check off the key idea as they hear it mentioned. The chart below provides space for students to note supporting facts that relate to each idea. This graphic organizer could be used as part of a preview to the trip. It also works well as a review exercise after the trip and can be completed as a whole group or independently.
After Your Virtual Field Trip . . .
Take a Concord Coach journey
Provide students with “A Concord Coach for Every Journey” and support them as they work their way through making correct selections for their chosen starting scenario. As they draw connecting lines between the “stages” of their journey, they make their way toward the correct destination.
Want To Do More?
Go further with these extension activities
Write a Concord Coach story. Show students “The Pemigewasset Coach,” a painting of a Concord Coach available in the Moose on the Loose Media Library. Guide students as they make “Notice and Wonder” observations about the painting. Then, ask students to continue the story of the journey. Who is on the coach? Where is it going? What happens along the way? Use the writing genre that best serves your curriculum goals (e.g. poem, play, fiction, or graphic novel).
“Build” a Concord Coach. Plot a rectangle with the dimensions of a “Kearsarge” model of Concord Coach from 1891 (78 inches wide, 152 inches long) on the floor with tape. It had room for nine passengers and needed four horses. Using the “coach” as their stage, students can perform a short skit about a typical journey.
Explore other 19th-century modes of transportation. The learning activities in Lesson 1 “New Hampshire on the Move” from
Unit 7: Building a State, 1784 to 1850 present a wide variety of ways to explore and compare the modes of transportation that helped New Hampshire grow.
The New Hampshire Historical Society thanks the following organizations for assisting in the making of this virtual field trip:
Johnny Prescott Oil & Propane
Mt. Washington Auto Road
Abbot-Downing Historical Society