I started a new unit today, Ancient China. I decided to use Venn diagrams as we compared and contrasted the land that each dynasty possessed. We started with the Shang Dynasty. Students listed geographical descriptions of the land. Then we added the land owned by the Zhou Dynasty. Next we looked at similaries. We continued with the comparisons for the Qin and Han Dynasties, just comparing the territories by referring to the atlas and web-based maps. We created summary statements in groups. Each group created statements that described how the territory expanded or changed over the course of the four dynasties. This activity allowed the students to start the unit with a foundation in geography and an awareness of how humans adapt to the environment. My students actually generated several higher level thinking questions about humans and the environment. Here's some questions that my students noted:
1. Why did certain territorties remain unclaimed?
2. Why did rulers avoid moving into a specific region?
3. Why did they build the Great Wall near the Gobi Desert?
4. Did they think about connecting the rivers?
5. How did they know to travel so far west to trade silk?
This simple lesson ended up generating a plethora of questions that continued to open to more questions that my students tried to solve. It resulted in a high interest lesson that sparked their curiosity.
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