DAY 1*

Wonder Boy: In the Beginning...
(Or, how in the world did an Iowa orphan get into college without even graduating high school, and then become so rich he could quit his job to feed millions?)

Learning Goals: Students will explore Herbert Hoover's youth and young adulthood in order to:

• Understand the background and times that shaped Hoover; and
• Draw conclusions about fundamental beliefs Hoover held throughout his career in public service.

Preparatory Set: Have students generate the names of rich people and how they got rich. Let students know they will be learning about Bill Gates and a Gates-like person, Herbert Hoover.

Task 1: Students collect data on Bill Gates, the billionaire of Microsoft fame. This can be done in a couple of ways:

A. Team Computer Work

Students are set up into teams to answer the following questions:

1. How did Bill Gates get started?
2. How big did his business become over the years?
3. Why did this happen?
4. What is Gates now doing with his fortune and his time?

Students will use the Internet to collect data and will record their information as notes. The team will then present the information to the class, documenting their information on a single class data web.

Students then examine the data web and develop answers to the question, "What life lessons did Bill Gates learn from all this?" The life lessons are student conjecture, and the teacher should be ready to probe students to get them to think about what lessons Gates would have learned as a result of his experiences. Key Question: What would YOU have learned if this happened to you, or if you did this activity?

Or, the teacher can do:

B. Order in the Life!

The teacher prepares by finding various articles from the Internet on Bill Gates, printing them, and cutting sentences with significant facts about his life out of the articles. These are then distributed to the students, who put them in order chronologically. After the students work out the order, the teacher reads the article (or a student does) and then asks, "If this happened to you, what would you learn about life and how to treat people?" Develop a list of lessons learned. Again, answers to this will be student conjecture, so the teacher should keep probing for ideas.

Learning Extension Option
If the teacher wishes, the students may examine the life lessons from the task and write a short essay about the lessons they consider to be most important for being a success.

Useful Sites:
http://www.answers.com/topic/bill-gates
http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9307520
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbillgates.htm

Teachers may use other resources for this information as they need to.

Task 2: Students collect data on Herbert Hoover, a multimillionaire by the time he was in his thirties. Use the following technique:

A. Jigsaw

Use the description of the early Hoover life found at
http://hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/Hooverstory/gallery01/gallery01.html, and
http://hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/Hooverstory/gallery02/gallery02.html.

• Have different groups of students read different sections of the gallery description found there and list at least one amazing thing they read about Herbert Hoover. This can be done via the Internet, or the teacher can print out the pages and cut them into readable sections. Have the students report to the class in order to build another data web about Hoover, or have them create cardboard bumper stickers about the two men using the facts they found.
• Have the students do the same thinking about lessons learned by Hoover as was done with Gates (above). Keep the list of lessons in a public place, on a large format (butcher paper, chalkboard or whiteboard, etc.) for use later in the unit.

Assessment: Have students create a graphic organizer to compare and contrast the two men. What do Gates and Hoover have in common, and what is different? Use the graphic organizer Venn diagram at http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/.

*Please note that this section can be done in a day, or it can take two full days.