Activity
1. Have students take out their notebooks for note-taking
via discussion.
2.
On the board or overhead write the following statement:
WHY EXPLORE?
3.
Have students take about 3-5 minutes to write a brief
list or paragraph answering the
question.
4.
When done, ask students to start sharing their ideas.
As they offer answers, write
on the board or overhead
what they say. See if categories or patterns are
developing. Ask students if they see emerging
patterns or categories
of exploration.
a.
Possible answers will be: for land, trade products including
food and spices, wealth
(gold, gems,
other minerals and metals), or knowledge. See
how often
their answers fall under these categories. Write
any others
they propose.
5.
When done with this discourse ask the follow-up questions:
a.
How do we accomplish the task of exploring?
b. What do we need to explore successfully?
6.
As students answer the questions, write their observations
on the
board or overhead.
a.
Possible answers will be money, ideas/ knowledge, technology,
labor/people, faith, a
means of
transportation, and maps.
7.
When done, pose the following ponder question.
Ponder
this: Throughout history, do you think that most exploration
took place in search
of new space
for living
for food, OR did it take place for wealth-related
items that had nothing to do with survival
needs?
8.
Before answering the question ask students why we explore
today? What do we explore
today?
a.
Possible answers: the oceans, space, inhospitable environments
(arctic regions,
jungles, deserts)
and microbial world.
9.
Why?
10.
Read Handout 1 and see what this article has to say about
why we should explore
space. (10 minutes)
11.
Share the article contents answering the question of
why we should explore
space.
a.
Answers:
i.
Living space (or human beings will turn on themselves
like rats in a cage)
ii. Technology benefits: Several
examples in the article
have to do with medical
benefits. (You
might ask students
to categorize the list.)
iii. In case the planet ‘dies’ we need to be
prepared.
12.
So in a nutshell: The answer according to this article
is that
we need to
explore to SURVIVE.
13.
Teacher follow-up: Survival is about finding food, water,
and
a
safe shelter.
So exploring
benefits us in our quest to survive!
14.
Follow through: Do we explore the oceans because they
can benefit
us?
How about
the microbial world? How? (Continue
with other
answers students
gave
in step 8.)
15.
In essence we explore to gain. The means by which we
create these survival situations during our
explorations
is to establish
and create
trade networks
and destinations. After all, if we find the food,
we need
to bring it back for those who can’t afford to
move. Hence, for many historians, historical exploration
is about trade and trading opportunities.
Closure
In
the following lessons the class will explore the question
of “Why do we trade?” To do so, take 5 minutes
to define the following: Trade, export, import, trade
items, and trade centers.
Trade:
exchange of goods among individuals or groups of people.
Export: exchange items leaving their current locale.
Import: exchange items entering a new locale.
Trade items: local resources available in excess (surplus
resources)
Trade
centers: centralized locales where people come to participate
in exchanges of goods. Homework
None
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