Lesson Standards:
Warm up (Opening):
| G,G, &St assessment: Each class will divide into groups of two or three. Each group must complete a triptic illustrating the major themes of the video(book) Gun, Germs, and Steel. Students will give me there group member's names on February 19 and the assignments "cut off" day is March 7 .
Guns, Germs and Steel Why did history unfold differently on different continents? Why has one culture—namely that of Western Europe—dominated the development of the modern world? In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Guns, Germs and Steel, scientist Jared Diamond argues that the answer is geography. The physical locations where different cultures have taken root, he claims, have directly affected the ability of those societies to develop key institutions, like agriculture and animal domestication, or to acquire important traits, like immunity to disease Notes from the book(film): SSWH10: The student will analyze the impact of the age of discovery and expansion into the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond Conquest - Pizarro vs the Inca In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Guns, Germs and Steel, scientist Jared Diamond argues that the answer is geography. The physical locations where different cultures have taken root, he claims, have directly affected the ability of those societies to develop key institutions, like agriculture and animal domestication, or to acquire important traits, like immunity to disease. The Spaniards certainly used weapons technology to their advantage in defeating the Incas. In the battle of Cajamarca [in 1532, in what is now Peru], 169 Spaniards faced an army of 80,000 Inca soldiers. In the first ten minutes, there were 7,000 Incas dead. When the dust settled, not a single Spaniard was dead. [Spanish conquistador] Francisco Pizarro got a slight wound. That's because the Spaniards have the steel sword and the Incas have wooden clubs. It really showed the power of military technology. In a way, the Spaniards also unwittingly deployed powerful biological weapons, including smallpox. It is estimated that 95 percent of Native American casualties throughout North and South America were due to disease rather than military conquest. Smallpox killed about 50 percent of the Incas in the first epidemic. Why did the Spaniards pass this disease on to the Incas and not the other way around? It turns out that most of the nasty, infectious diseases of human history came to us from domestic animals. Thirteen of the fourteen herd domestic animals were Eurasian species. The only herd domestic animal of the New World was the llama, but the llama didn't live in really big herds. So we didn't get diseases from llamas, but we did get diseases from pigs and sheep. And Eurasian people in general got exposed to these diseases at childhood and therefore developed an immune system. In the New World, smallpox arrives and nobody is exposed to it, so it's hitting everybody, including adults. |
0 Comments
Closing
Closing
Closing
Closing
Closing
Closing
Closing
|
Mr. HolceyMr. Holcey is a veteran teacher in the Savannah area. With over 20 years of teaching experience in subjects ranging from law to physical science. Archives
February 2021
Categories |