The dough machine

• As a class, ask students to think about the food they eat. They should list up to ten items of food that they usually eat. Ask students to consider:

1. How has the food been made? 
2. What types of machines are used to grow, manufacture and transport this food? 
3. How has food production changed since Henry's time? 

• Ask the students to research one basic food item that they eat regularly. The research should investigate the following questions:

1. How has the amount of time spent making these items changed over time?
2. How have the number and quality of these items changed over time?

• Refer to the following websites for more information:

1. History of the Bread Industry in Australia, www.gograins.com.au/grainsnutrition/ie/ie16_1.html
2. The Story Behind a Loaf of Bread, www.botham.co.uk/bread/index.htm

• Ask students to create a concept map with an image of the staple food in the centre, for example potato, wheat, milk or meat. Using the image, they are to explore how the food has been grown, harvested, sorted, refined, manufactured, packaged, transported, distributed to shops, sold and stored at home. They could either find images of the different stages and processes or draw them on the chart. Additionally, they should look at how the same food was treated in Henry's time, that is, in the 1870s.
• As a class, display and share the students' charts. Discuss the comparison between the way the food item has been produced in the past and the way the food item is produced today.

Student Activity Sheet H14.4: Staple foods

• Ask students to consider how technology and technological inventions have changed people's lives and the manner in which we work. Ask students to research and find examples of Australian inventions, for example, the Coolgardie safe or the stump-jump plough. In a small group, have students develop a timeline and list the inventions in time order along the timeline. 
• As a class, discuss how inventing new machines needs new ideas and creative thinking. Inventors usually set themselves a problem that they try to resolve through design and new ideas, testing them, producing the most successful items and marketing them to the general public. Some inventions don't always work or are too ahead of their time.
• Ask students to individually research one famous Australian inventor. Make sure they answer the questions: 

1. How did the inventor make their discovery?
2. Did they experience many setbacks in the invention process?
3. What did they produce, when, where, and how?
4. What impact did the invention have on how people lived and worked in the era of the invention?
5. What other inventions did they produce?

• The following website may be useful:

Power House Museum, Australia Innovates, www.powerhousemuseum.com/australia_innovates/

• Once students have completed their research work, have students create a vodcast or prepare an oral presentation with them acting in the role of the inventor. Students should explain the history behind their invention, and why it changed the world. Students should include pictures, diagrams and models to aid their presentation.
• Provide students with Student Activity Sheet H14.3 Inventions that changed Australia for them to create a first-person dialogue introducing their inventor.

Student Activity Sheet H14.3: Inventions that changed Australia

• Ask students to use examples from the clip to respond to the following questions:

1. In what year do you think this clip is set? (Inform students that it is set in 1878.)
2. How old do you think Stanley might be?
3. How does Stanley feel about school?
4. Why is Stanley working in the bakery? 
5. How does Stanley feel about this work?
6. Is Stanley pleased to see Henry and Franklin? Why or why not?
7. What does Stanley think about the boys' inventions?

• Ask students to work with a partner, and to use Student Activity Sheet E14.3 Technology in 1878 and today, to list forms of technology they recall seeing in the clip. Allow them to replay the clip to check their memories, to add technologies they had not recalled and to record who uses the technology, whether it is used today, and if not, what, if anything, has replaced it.
• Students could use the internet to find out the ingredients and steps involved in making a loaf of bread. Display and discuss websites located by students, reminding them to think about which sites might be more reliable than others. Select two or three websites that provide simple recipes. Have students work in small groups to choose a recipe and create a flowchart of the bread-making process.

• View the clip again and ask students to identify the part of the process that Henry and Franklin had not understood when they created their dough machine.
• In the same small groups have students plan what they need to make a loaf of bread, using their flowcharts. Students may need help from home to bring in the utensils required and to purchase the ingredients listed on their shopping list. Have a class bake-off and tasting session.
• Ask each student to create two job advertisements, one for 1878 and one for today, that list the skills and qualities required to be a baker. Display the posters and have a class discussion about how students have used different features on their posters to highlight the requirements of the job.

Student Activity Sheet E14.3: Technology in 1878 and today

• Ask students to examine the still photograph that shows a labelled diagram of Henry and Franklin's 'spoon cranking dough churner'. As a class identify features of the plan that help the boys to build the machine.
• Play the clip and direct students' attention to the way the boys use specific language and prior knowledge about other forms of technology to build the dough churner. For example, Franklin suggests a crank to turn the mechanism, and Henry suggests they use beaters like those found on a butter churn.
• Henry tries to convince Stanley that his invention is the future, that there will soon be machines everywhere. How does Henry describe the machine? What else does he say to try to convince Stanley to agree to show the machine to his father?
• Stanley's father Cornelius is initially very pleased with the boys' invention. As a class, list the features and qualities that please Stanley's father. Have each student create a poster that could be enlarged as a billboard advertisement to highlight positive features of the dough machine.

• Discuss Henry and Franklin's different views about avoiding problems with their inventions. Franklin is concerned about possible problems with their invention and says more than once that they should test its operation. What does Henry mean when he calls Franklin a 'wet blanket'?
• Ask students to view the clip again to find out when the boys first discover there is a problem with the invention. Have students complete Student Activity Sheet E14.4 Avoiding invention problems and record answers to the following questions:

1. How do Henry and Franklin first realise there is a problem with the invention? 
2. What is the problem? 
3. Why did the problem occur? 
4. How could the boys have avoided this problem?

• What do you think Henry and Franklin should have learned about being inventors, based on their experiences with the dough machine and their previous inventions?
• Students could work with a partner to re-design the dough machine so that it works safely. Ask them to draw a labelled diagram to explain their ideas.

Student Activity Sheet E14.4: Avoiding invention problems