QR Challenge: History Mystery Highland Clearances

Created using the ClassTools QR Treasure Hunt Generator

Teacher Notes

A. Prior to the lesson:

1. Arrange students into groups. Each group needs at least ONE person who has a mobile device.

2. If their phone camera doesn't automatically detect and decode QR codes, ask students to

• Download a QR reader (e.g. I-Nigma | NeoReader | Kaywa) onto their mobile devices
• Bring these devices into the lesson.

3. Print out the QR codes.

4. Cut them out and place them around your class / school.

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B. The lesson:

1. Give each group a clipboard and a piece of paper so they can write down the decoded questions and their answers to them.

2. Explain to the students that the codes are hidden around the school. Each team will get ONE point for each question they correctly decode and copy down onto their sheet, and a further TWO points if they can then provide the correct answer and write this down underneath the question.

3. Away they go! The winner is the first team to return with the most correct answers in the time available. This could be within a lesson, or during a lunchbreak, or even over several days!

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C. TIPS / OTHER IDEAS

4. A detailed case study in how to set up a successful QR Scavenger Hunt using this tool can be found here.

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Questions / Answers (teacher reference)

Question	Answer
1. What is the connection between the defeat of the Highlanders at Culloden and the clearances?	Culloden fanned the distrust between highlands and lowlands and lead to the influx of lowland landlords who were determined to modernise highland life/ farming.
2. When did the Clearances start and end?	mid C18th to mid C19th
3. What was life like for the highlanders- how did they farm/ survive?	Grew their own food, lived off the land, cattle and chickens for milk, meat and eggs.
4. Why did the Duchess of Sutherland want to remove the tenants?	In order to increase the profits on the estate and to prevent famine.
5. How important was the Industrial Revolution in causing the Highland Clearances?	It created demand for wool for the new textile factories and therefore encouraged the farming of sheep
6. What happened in Stathnever in 1813?	Patrick Sellar came to clear families off the land on the orders of the Duchess of Sutherland
7. Where were the people initially moved to after leaving Strathnever?	to the coast where industries and jobs had been set up
8. Why were the highland people upset by the clearances?	Many had lived on the land for centuries and felt they had a right to continue to live there.
9. Why didn't the clan system protect the highlanders from the clearances?	The clan system had started to break down after Culloden and many of the landowners no longer had any personal connection with their tenants- they saw it as an economic relationship
10. Why might the highlanders feel they had to leave their homes and villages- push factors?	Famine, high rents, destruction of their homes and a Hard life.
11. Why might the highlanders feel they wanted to leave their homes and villages- pull factors?	Better opportunities in cities with higher pay and more social life and land/ new life overseas.
12. What tactics did Sellar and the men employed to clear the villages/houses use?	posted eviction notices (often in English) then arrived in force to evict tenants often burning the roof and beams to prevent people returning
13. Why was 1814 known as the year of the burnings?	The year when the Sutherland Clearances reached their height and large numbers were evicted, crofts burnt and the hot weather made the fires more dramatic
14. What was Patrick Sellar accused of?	Culpable homicide of an old lady who died from shock as her house was set on fire.
15. Why are the Sutherland Clearances so infamous?	very thorough - large numbers of families moved and use of force
16. What evidence is there that Patrick Sellar was guilty of murder?	indictment which lists all he was accused of at his trial in 1816
17. What evidence is there that Patrick Sellar was just used as a scapegoat for the policy of the Sutherland estate?	Historians say that there is evidence that he actually ordered the rescue of the old lady once he realised what had happened.
18. What evidence did Donald MacLeod present about the Clearances in his book "Gloomy Memories"?	Very negative picture of the destruction of communities and the harsh methods that were used.
19. What happened to Patrick Sellar after he lost his job with the Sutherland estate?	Became a wealthy sheep farmer
20. Describe the event that affected the potato crop and increased the Highland Clearances?	Potato blight of the 1840s which decimated the crop and pushed people away from the Highlands as they were starving.

 

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