Roosevelt Middle SchoolTechnology Education

Technology Eras

Primitive Era (600,000 b.c.) The First Technology: Making Tools?

• Wood• Stone• Animal bones

Discovered how to make fire Families were small (life expectancy

is very low)

Agricultural Era (8,000 b.c.) Raising crops and animals

• Larger food supply leads to larger families

Civilizations started to be formed• Ruralization

Natural resources started being used• Wind • Water • Gravity

Industrial Era (1700-1900) Development of steam powered

machinery Factories are formed

• Mass production of goods (Automobile)• Assembly line (interchangeable parts)• Pollution!!!!! (new technologies create new

problems) New roads, waterways, and railroads

• Urbanization (cities are forming)

Informational Era (1940-??) Transistors

Electronic equipment• Big and expensive

Integrated Circuit Made it possible to put thousands of

tiny transistors on a computer chip• Smaller and less expensive• Possible for everyone to own a computer• Networks lead to the internet

Informational Era (1940-??) Independence

Can travel anywhere in the world Cell phones and internet make it

possible to communicate from almost anywhere

Goods and services are easily attainable

The Next Era? Age of Automation

• the use of machines to perform tasks without human supervision

Age of Leisure• Will there be manual labor?

Age of Knowledge• Will we know all there is to know?

Space age• Meet George Jetson?

Are the eras getting quicker? Our knowledge is growing at an exponential rate.

• exponential growth starts out being in a period of slow growth and then quickly changes over to rapid growth with a characteristic doubling over a period of time

Would you rather receive money exponentially or linearly (always adding the same amount)?

Technology Eras Primitive Era Agricultural Era Industrial Era Informational Era ????????