Unit Three Plans: European Expansion and Impact on the Environment and Native Peoples

Learning Objectives

Oregon's Common Curriculum Goals:

History

• World History
1. Understand and interpret events, issues and developments in four spheres of human activity (i.e., economic, social, political, cultural) within and across eras of world history:
• Era 1: The Beginnings of Human Society
• Era 2: Early Civilizations and the Emergence of Pastoral Peoples (4000 BC - 1000 BC)
• Historical Relationships
1. Analyze cause and effect relationships, including multiple causations.
2. Interpret and reconstruct chronological relationships.
3. Recognize and interpret change and continuity within four broad content themes: interaction of people, cultures, and ideas; economic and technological developments and their impact on society; American politics and political thought; role of the United States in the world.
4. Understand relationships among events, issues and developments that cross spheres of human activity (i.e., economic, social, political, cultural).

Economics

• Economics
1. Understand that resources are limted.
2. Understand economic trade-offs and how choices result in both costs and benefits to individuals and society.
3. Understand economic concepts, principles and factors affecting the allocation of available resources.
4. Understand the role of government and institutions in various economic systems in regard to the allocation of resources.

Geography

• Maps, Charts, Graphs and Other Geographic Tools as Sources of Information
1. Locate major physical and human (cultural) features of the Earth.
2. Use maps to organize information about people, places and environments in a spatial context.
• Physical and Cultural Characteristics of Places and Regions
1. Understand the social, cultural and economic processes that change the characteristics of places and regions over time.
2. Compare physical and human characteristics of places and regions.
• Distribution and Migration of People, Ideas and Products
1. Analyze the causes of human migration and its effects.
2. Compare and contrast one area of settlement to another.
• Interaction Between Physical and Human Systems
1. Describe the consequences of humans changing the physical environment and how human changes in one place affect other places.
2. Describe how physical charcteristics of places and regions affect human activities.
3. Understand the geographic results of resource use and management programs and policies.

Social Science Analysis

• Analysis
1. Define and clarify an issue so that its dimensions are well understood.
2. Explain various perspectives on an event or issue and the reasoning behind them.
3. Identify, analyze and select a course of action to resolve an issue.

Content Goals:

• Students will be able to trace the spread of people, plants, and animals throughout the world.
• Students will understand the exchange of physical and cultural influences following European contact with the Americas.
• Students will be able to identify elements of the environment which have been negatively impacted by the spread of humans over the planet, and especially since European expansion in the 1500s.
• Students will be able to trace a chronology of influences and impacts on a particular element of the environment.
• Students will be able to identify and explain the means by which Europeans built colonies around the world.
• Students will be able to understand the economic influences, costs and benefits to Europeans and native peoples from the establishment of European colonies.
• Students will be able to identify the impact of European colonization on native peoples.

Content Resources

Readings:

• Chapter 7 & 9 (pp. 117 - 140 and 161 - 224) in Clive Ponting's A Green History of the World
• Pairs activity (Linguistic, Spatial, Interpersonal) -

Create a map with graphics to represent the movement of species of plants and animals from Eurasia to other parts of the world.

• Individual activity (Spatial, Mathematical-Logical, Linguistic, Spatial) -

Create a concept web from the information on pages 194-223 of Ponting. Show how Europeans organized their colonies, what they used to make them economically successful, and how they affected the native peoples in the lands they occupied. Use symbols as well as words to make your concept web.

• Whaling article from teacher resource book
• Individual assignment (Linguistic, Mathematical-Logical, Spatial) -

Construct a timeline of events related to whaling.

Videos:

• The Mission
• 1492: Conquest of Paradise
• The Columbus Controversy: Challenging How History Is Written
• Surviving Columbus
• Group Discussion (Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Linguistic, Spatial, Musical)-

Have students discuss how it might have felt to be a native in the lands where Europeans set up colonies. Have them also discuss the motives and views of the Europeans who colonized different parts of the world.

• Individual Assignment (Linguistic, Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Mathematical - Logical) -

Have students research or interview to discover what the Prime Directive from the Star Trek television series and movies is all about. Have students write an explanation of its meaning, then ask them to write a contemporary version of the Prime Directive for humans in this time to follow. Ask students to consider how colonization of the moon, Mars, and other worlds, which may or may not have life on them, would be impacted if that student's Prime Directive were followed.

Have students write a new history of the world in which Europeans from the 15th century followed a similar Prime Directive to the one the student just wrote.

Students will present their work in small groups and defend their work to the group members' scrutiny.

• Small Group Activity (Linguistic, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal) -

Have students create short skits which depict meetings between Europeans and native peoples. In the first skit, students re-enact the historical meeting as it might have occurred, and in the second skit, students act out how the encounter might have been handled if a Prime Directive philosophy had been followed. Students may use dance, music and lyrics to help create the scene if they wish.

Links:

• High North Alliance
• Cetacean Society Internation
• Watery World of Whales