Battles Everywhere!

Recently, my class learned about the battles at different theaters of the Civil War in a unique way. Theaters referred to where the battles were and the naval theater involves bodies of water. However I was absent and could not participate in the main parts of the activity, but I did learn about it from my classmates. What I heard was that in order to answer the essential questions , " Who was the ultimate victor in each of the theaters of war; East, West. or Naval?" and "What are some commonalities you can identify in the reason for the result of battles?", a scavenger hunt was out together by the class. Each member of the class was responsible for making a google doc with information they found about their assigned battle. The google docs had to include the title of the battle, the victor, the theater, and two bullet points describing the battle. After the google docs were complete, everyone created their own QR code with a QR generator that linked to their google doc when it was scanned. This way, everyone could access their google doc. The QR codes were all printed and put up in various spots around our school. Our class then got to walk around and scan into each others google docs and put the information about the battle in our Evernotes. At the bottom of each google doc there was a clue that lead you to the next QR code's location.

After the scavenger hunt was completed (and I was back in school) , we took a closer look at just who won each of the battles and where they were located to try and find patterns. We made a Padlet as a class to display what we found. My classes Padlet is below.

Created with Padlet

From the padlet, you can conclude that the Union dominated most of the Western and Naval theater. Battles that took place in the Western theater like the battle of Vicksburg and battle of Shiloh show that the Union was able to be victorious because they outnumbered the Confederacy. The Union had more troops and could suppress the the confederate forces during these battles. To add, the Union had more manufacturing plants to supply them with ammunition and other supplies they needed, and they had a stable transportation service. The Union won most battles in the Naval theater because they had a better and well trained navy. The battles of Fort Henry and Donelson help prove this becasue they were ready with more ships on near by rivers and were ready to attack. Also from the padlet, you can conclude the Eastern theater was primarily dominated by the Confederacy. The Confederates won the battle of Fprt Sumter and the battle of Bull Run in the eastern theater by remaining composed and well supplied. The Confederates had more supplies available to them in the East where the Union had their plans for supplies mostly in the West. 

I wish I wasn't absent for the scavenger hunt because from what I heard it was many people's favorite lesson this year. I think its always refreshing when when you get the chance to get up and walk around while learning instead of sitting at a small desk the whole time. It also keeps the lesson interesting when you don't know where something is located and have to go out and find it.The padlet really helped me to grasp a lot of this information since I was out while it was all being collected during the scavenger hunt. My friends were really helpful with getting me all of the information I needed and making sure I knew what happened!