1 - Exploration

This unit investigates the age of exploration. It seeks to explore the difficulties that the explorers faced as well as the impact they had on the country of destination.

Taken From: http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/x/exploration-discovery-13480986.jpg

Key Concept

Change - To explore how exploration changed our view on the world.

Related Concepts

Causality, Resources and Networks - How have networks developed between countries? What resources were traded? What impact did these networks create?

Global Context

Orientation in Space and Time - Exploration of how the discovery of 'new lands' changed our perspective of place.

Statement of Inquiry

Aided by new technologies and driven by different motivations, diverse cultures come into contact across time, place and space with various results.

Inquiry Questions

Factual Questions: Remembering facts and topics

  • Why did sailors go on voyages of exploration from Europe in the late 15th and the 16th and 17th centuries?
  • Who were their sponsors and why?
  • What changes had taken place during the Renaissance (and this period in general) in terms of scientific and technical innovation that enabled the voyages to be successful?
  • What resources were found on the explorers journeys?
  • What impact did exploration have on the country of origin and destination country?

Conceptual Questions: Analysing big ideas

  • Did exploration by the Europeans cause disparities in wealth and development?
  • What is the relationship between exploration and resource acquisition?
  • What role does religious (and other) ideology have to play in the motivations of explorers and their patrons (sponsors)?

Debatable Questions: Evaluating perspectives and developing theories.

  • Was exploration of new worlds always negative?
  • Are the consequences of ideologies inevitably negative?