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circa 1270-1520: European Explorers
Google Earth file first composed by Tom Hammond, 2008: European explorers ver02.kmz.
Description: Presents overview of European 'voyages of discovery', framing them in a search for water routes to Asia. Uses Jamestown and the instructions to the settlers to invite a driving question. (For example: Why are these instructions so specific? Why specify taking the northwest branch of a river? And what is meant by 'the other sea'?) It then moves back to discuss European contact with east Asia, using Marco Polo (but the Crusades would also be a logical point of reference). Traces efforts by Genoa, Portugal, and then Spain to locate water routes to Asia as a way of addressing the driving question (i.e., the Portuguese had found a water route south and east; the Spanish had found a route west and south; the English and others hoped to find a route west and north).
Does not include other voyages commonly included in the K-12 curriculum: Spanish intra-continental expeditions (e.g. de Leon, Cortez, Pizarro, et al.), French explorers (Champlain, Marquette, et al.), other English expeditions (Cabot, Hudson, et al.). Other authors are invited to add these, or teachers could have their students add these as extensions to the existing file.
circa 1600: European Religions
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