Over two lessons, Year 8 explain why the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened on 15 September 1830, was so hard to build. In groups of three on school accounts, students create a Google Earth project with six placemarks along the 31-mile line: the Olive Mount cutting, hacked through sandstone on the way out of Liverpool; Rainhill, where the 1829 trials chose the Rocket; the nine-arch Sankey Viaduct; Parkside, where William Huskisson MP was fatally injured on the opening day; Chat Moss, the bog the track was floated across on hurdles and brushwood; and Liverpool Road station in Manchester. For each placemark the group sets the view that shows the feature most clearly and writes a caption from the source pack: the obstacle or event, the solution and what survives today. Groups pair up, click through each other's projects in order and name one caption that needs more evidence, which its authors rewrite. The teacher shows two projects on the board and the class argues which obstacle came closest to stopping the line.
Tools: Google Earth Nine ideas for your own version in Generate
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