LESSON 2: CyberHunt: Ahoy! Columbus

Transcription

1 LESSON 2: CyberHunt: Ahoy! Columbus Take your students on a web adventure! Your students will discover facts about one of the most famous explorers of all times, Christopher Columbus, as well as the culture he encountered along the way. Sponsored by SUBJECT MATTER Social Studies/ History GRADE LEVEL Grades 3 6 OBJECTIVE Students will learn about the explorations of Christopher Columbus and how to navigate the Internet for historical facts. Students can experiment with their own travel writing online, use their geography skills to map Columbus journey, and create their own coat of arms. MATERIALS Computer CyberHunt Reproducible CyberHunt Answer Guide Coat of Arms Reproducible Various Artistic Media (e.g., crayons, colored pencils, markers) SET UP AND PREPARE Time required: One 40-minute class. Lesson can be extended over several class periods. REPRODUCIBLES CyberHunt Reproducible CyberHunt Answer Guide Coat of Arms Reproducible DIRECTIONS Share the CyberHunt reproducible with students, and lead them in an online exploration of Christopher Columbus s travels. Follow the links to answer the following questions with our Ahoy! Columbus CyberHunt. 1. Before he set sail, Columbus visited many of Europe s kings and queens asking for support. Who finally agreed to pay for his famed voyage of exploration? 2. In 1492, Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a new trade route to the Far East. He landed on an island in the Bahamas called which he renamed. What was the original name and what did he change the name to? 3. Columbus s Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria were powered by wind, and averaged a speed of 4 knots (4.6 mph). On a day without any wind, the speed was zero. How many miles did the ships sail on an average day? 4. Columbus s maps showed that Japan was located 2,700 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. However, his maps were incorrect! In reality, how far was Columbus from Japan? 5. When Columbus first came to the New World, millions of people already lived there. At that point in time, how long had people been living in the Americas? 6. Columbus and the Europeans who followed him brought new technologies, ideas, plants, and animals to the Americas. Name three:,, and Europeans also brought new diseases with them, like smallpox. When Columbus landed there were some 10 million people, but due to disease, the number declined. What did the population fall to? EXTEND THE LESSON 1. Keeping an Electronic Travel Journal Columbus kept a careful journal of all of his travels, fragments of which survive. To view some of these, visit

2 and Columbus wrote about the natural environment and the native people he encountered along his journeys. As you read a few passages aloud and in groups, encourage students to look carefully at his descriptions. Talk about how the way in which he wrote was influenced by his perspective. Ask students to think about their own travel experiences, whether they be to the beach, to another state, or to a foreign country. What were these new places like? What were the inhabitants of these new places like? Students can pick a place they ve visited and describe what it was like, as if they were Columbus discovering a new land. Have them create an electronic journal entry that includes characteristics such as housing, transportation, and food, and how similar or different they are to the characteristics of their home. Encourage them to illustrate their experiences on the computer, and find images on the internet of the place they ve traveled. Then, compare students journals as a class, and compile them into a digital classroom travel log. Post on the internet for others to check out! For an additional creative arts angle, students can create a digital postcard of where they ve traveled. 2. Super-Sized Voyage Map Help students grasp the scale of the legendary first journey of Columbus with a super-sized class map. Visit and for copies of world maps to mark out the voyage, then cover one classroom wall in bulletin board paper. Use a projector to display a large image of a map onto the wall. Have students trace the image, then move the map to the floor so that they can paint and label it. Use model ships to demonstrate the path Columbus traveled in Coat of Arms: Coat of Arms Reproducible After his successful voyages, Spain awarded Columbus the right to bear a coat of arms. Visit to see what it looked like. Talk with students about the symbols that Columbus chose, and what they might reveal about his personality and his position in the Spanish court. Then ask students to design their own coat of arms in the blank reproducible to reflect their personalities and what s important to them. Have students divide their shields into four sections and search the Internet for symbols and shapes they wish to display. Take pictures of the shields with a digital camera, print, and hang in the classroom. Have students type descriptions of their shields to accompany their artwork. Sponsored by

3 name date CyberHunt Ahoy! Columbus L How much do you know about the voyages of Christopher Columbus? Follow the links as your teacher advises to answer the following questions. 1.) Before he set sail, Columbus visited many of Europe s kings and queens asking for support. Who finally agreed to pay for his famed voyage of exploration? 2.) In 1492, Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a new trade route to the Far East. He landed on an island in the Bahamas called which he renamed. What was the original name and what did he change the name to? 3.) Columbus s Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria were powered by wind, and averaged a speed of 4 knots (4.6 mph). On a day without any wind, the speed was zero. How many miles did the ships sail on an average day? 4.) Columbus s maps showed that Japan was located 2,700 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. However, his maps were incorrect! In reality, how far was Columbus from Japan? 5.) When Columbus first came to the New World, millions of people already lived there. At that point in time, how long had people been living in the Americas? 6.) Columbus and the Europeans who followed him brought new technologies, ideas, plants, and animals to the Americas. Name three.,, and 7.) Europeans also brought new diseases with them, like smallpox. When Columbus landed there were some 10 million people, but due to disease, the number declined. What did the population fall to?

4 CyberHunt: Answer Guide 1. King Ferdinand II & Queen Isabella. 2. Guanahani. San Salvador miles a day ,200 miles to the west. 5. Tens of thousands of years. 6. Three of these: guns, iron tools, weapons, Christianity, Roman law, wheat, sugarcane, horses, and cattle. 7. Less than one million.

5 name date Coat of Arms After his successful voyages, Spain awarded Columbus the right to bear a coat of arms. Design your own coat of arms to reflect your personality and what is important to you. Divide your shield into four sections and choose the symbols, shapes, and colors you wish to display.