Industrial Revolution: Why was there an Industrial Revolution?

A full lesson on the causes of the Industrial Revolution. Through the enquiry of ‘Why was there an Industrial Revolution’? The aim of the lesson is for students to understand reasons why there was a period of change in Britain between 1750 and 1900. Students will find out what Britain was like before 1750 to then understand how Britain changed during this time. They will then read the opinion of two experts on the topic and make their own judgement on the main reasons for the Industrial Revolution. Students will do this by catagorising causes of the Industrial Revolution through a card sort activity and will then be asked to put the main reasons on a line from least to most important. Students will then be asked to first discuss and then write about whether they agree or disagree with the experts and explain why they think there was an Industrial Revolution in Britain. The plenary is a review of students’ progress using a quiz to recall knowledge from the lesson.

This lesson is a KS3 lesson with clear objectives, a key enquiry question and differentiated resources, including challenge tasks and scaffolds throughout. All information sheets and resources are included on the slides for a download and go lesson. It downloads in a powerpoint format so can be adapted easily.

This lesson includes:

• A visual and engaging starter
• Key word activity to improve literacy
• Differentiated tasks such as a card sort
• A final written task for students to create their own judgement with a scaffolded structure and challenge task
• A review based plenary using knowledge from the lesson to measure progress.