Middle School
Worksheets
Building a Better Mousetrap, Part 1
Why is the United States one of the best countries for inventors to live in? Americans value their freedom and are willing to have others share in it. This is not just the freedom to live in America but also the freedom to think and speak freely and pursue a better life.
Invention is limited only by imagination. Since the early days of this country, people have come here and found new, better ways to get things done. The following list represents just a few of the many inventions that have been produced by Americans.
In America's early years, trade depended heavily on seagoing ships. Navigators had many challenges in figuring out where they were. Around 1730, the sextant was invented in both an American colony and in Britain. It allowed a person to find his latitude by measuring the angle of the sun, the moon, or a certain star with the horizon.
Eyeglasses were fairly common by Ben Franklin's day, yet he found a way to improve them. After he grew tired of switching between his glasses for near vision and the ones to see at a distance, he put them together. Half of the near vision lens was on the bottom, and the distance lens was at the top. It worked. We now call glasses with these lenses bifocals.
