What If You Stayed the Same?

Subject:
History, Social Studies

Theme:
Change is an inevitable, necessary, and often unstoppable force in Nature.

OBJECTIVE

Students will be better able to accept rapid widespread changes like those that occurred in Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1988. Students will be able to distinguish between changes we can control and those we cannot.

METHOD

Through guided imagery, children are introduced to the concept of change as a desirable force. A handout will then help them to predict and visualize changes in their own lives and in the "life" of Yellowstone and to distinguish between changes we can and cannot control.

BACKGROUND

During the summer of 1988, 793,880 acres (or approximately 36%) of Yellowstone were affected by fire in some way, giving Yellowstone a new face. Intellectually, we may be able to understand that this is a perfectly natural event, but emotionally, change of this magnitude can be hard to accept.

Guided imagery is an information-processing technique that enhances long-term memory and comprehension of complex concepts. Using this technique, you read, or describe in your own words, a series of images for your students to visualize, with their eyes closed, in their minds. Leave time between the phrasing of your words for the students to picture the images you are suggesting.

MATERIALS

"Predicting Change" handout

Pencils

PROCEDURE

1. Read A.A. Milne’s "Now I Am Six"

When I was one, I had just begun.

When I was two, I was nearly new.

When I was three, I was hardly me.

When I was four, I was not much more.

When I was five, I was just alive.

But now I am six, I’m clever as clever,

I think I’ll stay six now for ever and ever!

2. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of staying six forever, then ask the students whether or not they would like to remain their present age. What would it be like if you were to stop changing, but nothing else did?
   
   
3. Tell the students that they will find out what it would be like to stop changing, by using their imaginations. Instruct them to sit comfortably with their eyes closed. They should imagine that what you are about to read is really happening and that they are actually seeing, feeling and hearing the things you describe.

Guided Imagery

Imagine that while we are on our class field trip to __________, we unknowingly go through a time warp. What has seemed like only a few hours to us, is actually twenty years to everyone back home. Everyone thought we had vanished off the face of the earth-after all, we have been missing for twenty years!

Not knowing this, I call the school and say, "We’re on our way home. It’s been a wonderful trip! We’ll be back at school this evening." They are flabbergasted! They try to tell me that we have been gone for decades, but I assume that they’re joking. Back at home the school spreads the word about our miraculous return and waits. As the bus rolls homeward, you peer out the window, watching for familiar landmarks—but you don’t recognize anything! There are houses and stores everywhere. . .why don’t you remember things looking this way? Did the bus driver take a wrong turn somewhere? The bus grows quieter and quieter as, one by one, you begin to realize that something very strange has happened while you were away. . .things that couldn’t have happened in just a few hours time. By the time the bus finally pulls up in front of the school, the whole class is deathly silent. You step off the bus. . .nothing looks the same! You hardly recognize the school because the trees around it are much bigger than when you left and the building looks older. Cars look and sound different- makes and models that you’ve never known before! You don’t recognize the people crowding around your bus. Little kids are giggling among themselves as they point and snicker at you. You overhear one of them whispering, "Look at those old fashioned clothes!" An elderly person hugs you, crying. You don’t even recognize your own parent! The young man with them is your baby brother! They are all treating you like a little kid. That’s what you are, a little kid. . .just like you were twenty years ago!

4. Discuss the experience. If it was unpleasant, why? Point out that although no one knows how their lives will change in the next twenty years, change will happen. Suggest that the same is true in nature, although changes usually (but not always) happen more slowly. Point out that although parents love their children just the way they are, they would probably be upset if their children were to suddenly stop changing. Change is an inevitable and necessary process in life. Suggest that we must love nature enough to allow it to change in the ways best suited to it.
   
   
5. Distribute and complete the handout, "Predicting Change."

EXTENSIONS

Research the history of how fire has been controlled. Research how your community has changed in your lifetime. How has it changed in the past twenty years? Ask your parents if they have any old photo albums going back twenty years. Interview an old timer. Look up old newspapers and magazines in your local library. Look at an old movie or television program from the early 1960’s. How did people dress and talk back then? If you could choose between living then or now, which would you choose? Why?

Read a science fiction novel about time travel to the children in class. Some possibilities include A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle and Time and Again by Jack Finney.

Have the students write a descriptive paragraph about what they felt during the guided imagery experience. What would they do if they went home today and everyone in their family was twenty years older?

EVALUATION

Students can be evaluated on their participation and the completeness of their work.

SOURCE

Getting to Know Wildland Fire

A Teacher’s Guide to Fire Ecology in the Northern Rockies

Predicting Change

Predict changes that will be occurring in your lifetime and in the "life" of Yellowstone during the time periods indicated.

We can control some of these changes, but not all. Underline the changes we can control. Circle those we cannot.