Our Town is Important

Our Town Is Important Project

project requirement:

http://www.mrsmcgowan.com/town/about2003.htm

The name of our community is Pawtucket in the state of Rhode Island. Pawtucket, a Native American name meaning "At the Falls", is an older mill town located on the Massachusetts border, 45 minutes south of Boston. The primary tourist site is the Slater Mill, home of the textile industry. Loom weaving technology was brought to this country by Samuel Slater. Samuel Slater built the first water-powered cotton mill here in 1793. Technological innovations at the mill helped industrialize the U.S. The Slater Mill is located on a pretty bit of land at the falls, which once powered the factory. The Wilkinson Mill, located in an adjacent building, maintains water power connections to the river. For more info, see Slater Mill.

McCoy Stadium Slater Mill

Here is the poem we wrote together after our trip using the format of Margaret Wise Brown’s Important Book .

To kick off our Social Studies unit “Where We Live”, our class took a field trip to City Hall where we visited the mayor, the police station, and the fire station. The first thing we saw inside City Hall was the city seal on the floor of the main foyer.

Then we walked up the stairs to meet Mayor Doyle in his office. He took the time to answer our questions, show us the city flag, and have his picture taken with us. When we left, he gave us a special pencil to remember our visit.

The next stop on our trip was to the police station. First, we visited the dispatch office and then we met Erix, a trained police dog. He was taught how to open the car door by himself.

Our last stop was at the fire station. Here we learned about how a firefighter gets ready for a fire and all the equipment that is available on a fire truck to assist him while fighting a fire.

Then he drove the fire truck outside to show us the ladder. We watched in awe as he climbed higher and higher. Then our bus arrived to take us back to school.

It was a great ending to a very cold and busy morning. We couldn’t wait to see all the ‘goodies’ we got from our trip to the fire station! Visit our Social Studies page for more information on this unit.

http://www.riedc.com/mcds/Pawtucket.html

http://www.pawsox.com/

http://www.small-parks.com/McCoy.htm

Who was Samuel Slater? http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/es/ri/slater_1

http://www.state.ri.us/ official state site

http://visitrhodeisland.com/index_h.html tourist site