Native Cultures Up Close
Activity: Students choose one ancient American culture to explore
in-depth, and use online resources to find important facts about the civilization.
Students synthesize their research and work together on a poster presenting
what they have learned to the class.
- Divide the class into four research teams. (If
you want smaller groups, divide the class into eight teams.) Assign
each team one of the following ancient American cultures:
Maya
Aztec
Inca
Anasazi
- Get your students excited about generating their own questions and
using the Internet and the library to find the answers. Ask them to
brainstorm what they would like to learn, and write their questions
on the board. Encourage them to think about important categories such
as: history, location, food, shelter, art, and language. For example,
their list might include these questions:
Where did these people live?
When did their culture flourish?
What did they eat?
Did they keep pets?
Did the children go to school?
What kinds of houses did they live in?
What types of artifacts did they leave behind? What do we learn from
these artifacts?
Why did their civilization end? And when?
What language did they speak? Did they have any form of writing?
-
Give each team the list of Web sites (below) for their assigned culture.
Have each team research answers to the questions they developed. Along
the way, encourage students to print and draw images that will help
illustrate their report posters.
- Each team can create a poster filled with the facts they have learned.
When they have finished, let each group tell the class what they have
discovered by explaining their posters to the class.
|
