French inventors and inventions

What would our world be without "pens" or "eyeglasses" or  "photos"?  We often hear about the high tech scientific inventions but what about the inventions that just make our life a little easier?  - sitting in a chair instead of on the floor, eating our meals with knives and forks instead of with our hands .....   Who are these people and where have they come from?  Many of them are French inventors from France, Belgium, Switzerland and even Canada.  I recently had my students do an internet research project about inventors with French backgrounds.  They each researched an inventor, wrote 3 paragraphs - one about the life of the inventor, the second about the invention itself and thirdly a paragraph about how the invention has left its mark on our daily lives.  Some of the inventions included:  margarine, aspirin, Braille, sewing machine, saxophone, pencil, cellophane, Velcro and even the bikini!  These were obviously the ones that at first glance would make doing research the most exciting but I didn't want any of my students to know anything about what invention they would learn about until they had "chosen the name"!  With pieces of paper hidden in an envelope each of my students pulled a name one by one to their mystery inventor.  - Blaise Pascal, Louis Réard, Jacques Cousteau, Louis Braille, Nicolas Conté, Rudolf Diesel, just to name a few.   Away they went - to the internet to discover just a little bit more about our history and the people who have helped make our present the way it is.  I have since marked these projects and I must say that I am more than thrilled with the information that they learned.  Last class we sat around tables and shared what was learned.  Their next step is to become the "inventor" themselves!  What will they invent?  - an automatic pooper scooper? a machine to clear the table for us after dinner? - The list is really only within the limits of their imaginations!  I can't wait to see their new discoveries!   If you're interested in doing this project with your students please check out my store. - 

http://bit.ly/P54KOU     French Inventors Project
http://bit.ly/Phhx0R        French - A new invention

Enjoy!  Happy creations!  :)