Communications

How did people communicate in the past? How have developments in communication changed our lives? This resource is designed to help students discover and ‘have a go with’ different ways of communicating.

Recommended for Year 4 to 8

This lesson is available for classroom sharing as Google slides

Curriculum Links

Social Sciences:

Level 3: Understand how people remember and record the past in different ways.

Technology:

Level 2: Characteristics of technology Understand that technology both reflects and changes society and the environment and increases people’s capability.

Mathematics:

Level 2: Statistical investigation

Conduct investigations using the statistical enquiry cycle:

Level 3: Statistical investigation

• Posing and answering questions
• Gathering, sorting, and displaying category and whole-number data
• Communicating findings based on the data.
• Conduct investigations using the statistical enquiry cycle:
• Gathering, sorting, and displaying multivariate category and whole-number data and simple time-series data to answer questions
• Identifying patterns and trends in context, within and between data sets
• Communicating findings, using data displays.

In this lesson plan we will be exploring:

Part 1. Telephones

Part 2. Morse Code

Part 3. New Zealand Sign Language

Part 4. Braille

Part 1. Telephones

Activity 1

You will need:

Write down all the ways in which people communicate. Share this brainstorm with your class and add your ideas together. 

Use your workbook to put the information from the class brainstorm into the tally chart, then answer the following questions:

• What is the most common method of communication in your class?

• What is the least common method of communication in your class?

Using the Communications workbook and the brainstorm from the whole class, put the communication methods into groups. For example; physical, written etc.

What is the most popular type of communication method? Why do you think that is?

Telephones: Activity 2

You will need

• The Communications workbook
• Your classmates
• MOTAT online collections (insertlink)
• Photo gallery on this page

Answer the following questions individually:

• Do you have a landline phone in your home?
• How many mobile phones are in your house?
• Do you have your own mobile phone?

Now compare your answers with the rest of your class and answer the following questions: 

• What percentage of your class has a landline in their home?
• What percentage of your class has their own mobile phone?

Choose one of the phones in the gallery below and do some more research – use the MOTAT Online research tool found via the padlet in the link and focus your research on the following topics:

• Years that the phone was available
• Privacy of phone calls
• Portability of the phone
• Dialing and connection speeds
• Cost of the phone
• Cost of the phone calls

PADLET LINK https://padlet.com/MOTAT_Education/xeyntbgp22c0

MOTAT Collections online link https://collection.motat.org.nz/explore

Telephones: Activity 3

Make a string phone

You will need:

• A long piece of string (at least 3 metres)
• 2 paper or plastic cups
• Scissors (and adult help)

Have a go at making your own string telephone. 

We’d love you to share your string telephones and the results of the experiments with us by emailing photos/videos to motat.fun@motat.org.nz

This lesson is available for classroom sharing as Google slides

Click through to:

Part 2. Morse Code

Part 3. New Zealand Sign Language

Part 4. Braille