Basic HTML Version
36
SECTION 1
CLIL Expansion
In 1878 Joseph Swan invented the electric filament lamp.
This was a loop
5
of carbon wire inside a sealed
6
glass bulb
with little air. It gave a good light.
In 1880 he fitted these electric filament lamps into his house
in Gateshead. At about the same time, (1879) Thomas
Edison invented the carbon filament light bulb in America.
In 1882, New York was lit by electricity.
In 1883 Swan and Edison formed their own company to
make lamps.
Electricity was here to stay and speeded up developments
in industrial production, new methods of production were
introduced. This was the second major change of this period.
5
loop: shape
6
sealed
: tightly closed, very
hard to open
TASK 4
Here is a short passage, taken from
Mary Barton
, a novel written by Elizabeth Gaskell, (a Victorian novelist
who was very critical of the effects of the Industrial Revolution on people’s lives). Here she is praising the
introduction of gaslights in streets at night, but she also compares the good life of the rich with the harsh
reality of the poor, even in their imagination and dreams.
Classwork
Read it and debate with your classmates the positive and negative aspects of the technological
innovations of the 19th century.
TASK 5
Work in pairs or in a small group
Look around your classroom, school and home and discuss what your
lives today would be like without electricity. Write a short account (either alone or as a group/pair) of a day in
the life of a typical school student in an electricity-less world. Read your diary out to the rest of the class and
comment on each other’s.
…and the people of the time said…
I
t is a pretty sight to walk through a street with lighted
shops; the gas is so brilliant, the display of goods so much
more vividly shown than by day, and of all shops a druggist’s
1
looks most like
2
the tales of our childhood, from Aladdin’s
garden of enchanted fruits to the charming Rosamond with
her purple jar
3
. No such associations has Barton; yet he felt
the contrast between the well-filled, well-lighted shops
4
and
the dim gloomy
5
cellar
6
, and it made him moody
7
that such
contrast should exist...
1
druggist
: pharmacist
2
looks most like
: most closely resembles
3
jar
: large (usually terracotta/ceramic) container often use
for storage
4
well-stocked shops
: shops with and a wide variety of goods
5
dim and gloomy
: badly lighted, depressing
6
cellar
: a cellar was the place in Berry Street where the
poor family of Davenport lived
7
moody
: bad tempered, grumpy, irritable
Vincent van Gogh:
Starry Night
and
The potato Eaters.
Progetto FOR ELECTRONICS_unit_1.indd 36
10/01/