Voices of the Past: Exploring Change and Continuity · 6th Class

Active learning ideas

The Coffin Ships and Mass Emigration

Active learning helps students grasp the human cost of the Great Famine by stepping into the roles of those who endured it. These hands-on activities build empathy while reinforcing historical evidence, making abstract statistics about emigration tangible and memorable.

• NCCA Curriculum Specifications
• NCCA: Primary - Eras of Change and Conflict
• NCCA: Primary - Human Environments

• 30–45 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 4 activities

Activity 01

• Role Play
• 45 min · Small Groups

Role-Play: Life on a Coffin Ship

Divide class into groups representing ship sections: steerage, deck, sick bay. Assign roles like emigrant family, doctor, captain; provide props and scenario cards detailing daily rations, storms, outbreaks. Groups act out 10-minute scenes then debrief on hardships.

Evaluate the factors that compelled families to undertake the perilous journey of emigration during the Famine.

Facilitation Tip

During Debate: Destination Choices, assign students to research either Canada, the United States, or Australia, and have them prepare arguments based on historical evidence about conditions in each location, including quarantine policies and job opportunities.

What to look for

Provide students with a card asking: 'Name one reason a family might have chosen to emigrate during the Famine, and one danger they faced on the 'coffin ships'.' Collect these to gauge immediate understanding of key push factors and voyage conditions.

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Social Awareness
• Self-Awareness

Activity 02

• Concept Mapping
• 35 min · Pairs

Concept Mapping: Global Emigration Routes

Provide world maps and data cards on ports like Liverpool, Grosse Île, New York. Students plot routes, mark death rates, note destinations. Pairs add push-pull factor icons, then share findings in a class gallery walk.

Compare the experiences of Irish migrants in different destination countries such as the United States, Canada, and Australia.

What to look for

Pose the question: 'Imagine you are advising a family in 1847. What advice would you give them about emigrating? Consider the destination, the journey, and what they might leave behind.' Facilitate a class discussion where students share their reasoned advice.

• Understand
• Analyze
• Create
• Self-Awareness
• Self-Management

Activity 03

• Role Play
• 40 min · Pairs

Source Analysis: Voices from the Voyage

Distribute excerpts from emigrant diaries and newspapers. In pairs, students highlight conditions, emotions, outcomes; create a class chart comparing US, Canada, Australia experiences. Discuss reliability of sources.

Explain how the 'coffin ships' earned their name and assess their significance in the collective memory of the Great Famine.

What to look for

Present students with three short, contrasting descriptions of emigrant experiences in different countries. Ask them to identify which country is likely being described and justify their answer with evidence from the text, checking for comparative analysis skills.

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Social Awareness
• Self-Awareness

Activity 04

• Formal Debate
• 30 min · Whole Class

Formal Debate: Destination Choices

Form teams to argue for or against destinations based on evidence cards. Whole class votes, then reflects on real migrant decisions amid uncertainty.

Evaluate the factors that compelled families to undertake the perilous journey of emigration during the Famine.

What to look for

Provide students with a card asking: 'Name one reason a family might have chosen to emigrate during the Famine, and one danger they faced on the 'coffin ships'.' Collect these to gauge immediate understanding of key push factors and voyage conditions.

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Self-Management
• Decision-Making

A few notes on teaching this unit

Experienced teachers approach this topic by balancing factual rigor with emotional engagement. Avoid presenting the Great Famine as a distant historical event by using role-play to humanize data, and use mapping to show how geography shaped survival chances. Research suggests that when students confront the scale of loss through firsthand accounts and simulations, their understanding of systemic oppression and resilience deepens.

Students will explain the role of push factors in forcing emigration and compare the dangers of different voyage routes. They will use historical sources to justify decisions made by emigrant families and evaluate the impacts of British policies on Irish lives.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• During Role-Play: Life on a Coffin Ship, watch for students assuming emigration was a free choice. Redirect them by asking each role player to explain what forced their family to leave Ireland, using specific details from the famine context.

  During Mapping: Global Emigration Routes, have students highlight the colonies and ports where Irish emigrants were diverted due to typhus outbreaks, using data from historical records to correct the idea that destinations were always voluntary choices.

• During Mapping: Global Emigration Routes, watch for students thinking coffin ships only sailed to the United States. Redirect them by having them trace routes to Canada, Australia, and Britain, noting the high mortality rates at quarantine stations in these locations.

  During Source Analysis: Voices from the Voyage, ask students to identify language in emigrant letters or ship logs that reveals the desperation of their choices, contrasting it with later letters from America that mention hope or regret.

• During Source Analysis: Voices from the Voyage, watch for students dismissing high death rates as exaggerated. Redirect them by having them calculate survival rates from ration cards or burial records provided in the activity, comparing their findings to modern survival rates on long voyages.

  During Debate: Destination Choices, require students to use historical evidence to defend their claims about which destination was most dangerous, ensuring they rely on documented mortality rates rather than assumptions.

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Methods used in this brief

• Role Play
• Concept Mapping
• Formal Debate