| This unit addresses the growth and development of empires during Era 3 and their decline and collapse. It also explores other ways in which societies were organized during this period that did not conform to an imperial model. The driving questions of the unit frame students’ investigations: (1) How did the interaction between empires affect their growth and development?; (2) What were the most significant factors that enabled empires to stay in power and why did these empires eventually fall?; and (3) Why did some societies not become empires or parts of empires? In order to develop an understanding of empires, as well as their social, political, and cultural structures, students examine four empires in-depth: Han, Roman, Kushan, and Gupta. While each is different in certain respects, students focus on the commonalities among them. In exploring the Han Dynasty, students first situate the empire in both time and space through timelines and map analyses. They compare different accounts of the Han Dynasty and examine important Han technologies and innovations. Students revisit Confucianism and explore the civil service in Han China in order to consider the factors that helped unify China during this time. After investigating the Roman Empire in geographic and historical contexts, students learn about Roman contributions or innovations, as represented by four specific categories: (1) art and ideas; (2) language, writing, and calendars; (3) technology and engineering; and (4) culture and lifestyle. They construct an argument about which advancement was most significant using the criteria for historical significance from Unit 1. They then focus on a lesser known empire, the Kushan Empire of central Asia. After situating the empire in comparison to the chronology of the Han and Roman Empires, students make predictions about the Kushans while studying the image of a Kushan coin. Students then consider how the Kushan Empire demonstrates that Afroeurasia was indeed a connected world zone. To help students distinguish an “empire” from other political/social organizations, the Mayan civilization is introduced. Students consider whether the Mayans were an empire using the criteria for empire developed in past lessons. They compare the Mayans with the Romans and Han Chinese and make conjectures about the reasons for key differences using the concept of geographic luck. Next, students explore the Golden Age of the Gupta Empire and take up the question of how the age was “golden” and to what extent it was “golden” for everyone. After situating the Gupta Empire in history and geography with map and timeline work, students are introduced to two claims about the Gupta Empire: (1) it was a “golden age” and (2) the social hierarchy of the caste system meant that not everyone benefitted the same way. Students use evidence they collect through readings and classwork to support their assessment of the Gupta Empire as having a Golden Age. Students then turn their focus to the question why do empires collapse? Using the empires previously explored, students identify common characteristics shared by these empires and explore the reasons why they declined and fell. They categorize these reasons as internal or external, and then also as economic, cultural, social, political, or natural environment. Students also compare the fall of these empires to the decline of Mayan civilization. The unit concludes with students exploring “other stories” through a web quest and group work. They analyze societies around the world during this era that did not fit the pattern of empires. In comparing these other societies to empires, students make predictions about what filled the power vacuums left by the fallen empires, which will be taken up in the following unit. Clearly, this unit focuses on the larger common patterns shared by empires and their decline. Again, we are looking at differences, but world history focuses on the larger human story – the story we all share. In learning about how empires addressed common human problems and why they fell, students examine patterns of leadership, social hierarchy, technology development, and societal interactions. In doing so, they consider factors common during the decline of empires, such as over-expansion and loss of control, corruption, disease, warfare, natural disasters, and the failure of social/political institutions to solve problems. As students proceed through the lessons, they use both timelines and maps to “see” changes in civilizations, and to investigate scale and the impact of geography on people and the existence and decline of empires. They also engage with a range of primary and secondary documents to get a sense of life within empires during their heyday and decline, as well as life outside of empires during this period of human history. |
| MI: Social Studies (2007) 7 – H1.1.1 Explain why and how historians use eras and periods as constructs to organize and explain human activities over time. H1.2 Historical Inquiry and Analysis
Use historical inquiry and analysis to study the past. 7 – H1.2.1 Explain how historians use a variety of sources to explore the past (e.g., artifacts, primary and secondary sources including narratives, technology, historical maps, visual/mathematical quantitative data, radiocarbon dating, DNA analysis). 7 – H1.2.2 Read and comprehend a historical passage to identify basic factual knowledge and the literal meaning by indicating who was involved, what happened, where it happened, what events led to the development, and what consequences or outcomes followed. 7 – H1.2.3 Identify the point of view (perspective of the author) and context when reading and discussing primary and secondary sources. 7 – H1.2.4 Compare and evaluate competing historical perspectives about the past based on proof. 7 – H1.2.5 Describe how historians use methods of inquiry to identify cause effect relationships in history noting that many have multiple causes. 7 – H1.2.6 Identify the role of the individual in history and the significance of one person’s ideas. H1.4 Historical Understanding
Use historical concepts, patterns, and themes to study the past. 7 – H1.4.1 Describe and use cultural institutions to study an era and a region (political, economic, religion/ belief, science/technology, written language, education, family). 7 – H1.4.2 Describe and use themes of history to study patterns of change and continuity. 7 – H1.4.3 Use historical perspectives to analyze global issues faced by humans long ago and today. W3 WHG Era 3 – Clasical Traditions and Major Empires, 1000 B.C.E./B.C. to 300 C.E./A.D.
Analyze the civilizations and empires that emerged during this era, noting their political, economic, and social systems, and their changing interactions with the environment. Analyze the innovations and social, political, and economic changes that occurred through the emergence of agrarian societies of Mesoamerica and Andean South America and the subsequent urbanization and trading economies that occurred in the region. (Grade 6)
W3.1 Classical Traditions and Major Empires in the Western Hemisphere
Describe empires and agrarian civilizations in Mesoamerica and South America. 7 – W3.1.1 Describe the characteristics that classical civilizations share (institutions, cultural styles, systems of thought that influenced neighboring peoples and have endured for several centuries). 7 – W3.1.2 Using historic and modern maps, locate three major empires of this era, describe their geographic characteristics including physical features and climates, and propose a generalization about the relationship between geographic characteristics and the development of early empires. 7– W3.1.3 Compare and contrast the defining characteristics of a city-state, civilization, and empire. 7 – W3.1.5 Describe major achievements from Indian, Chinese, Mediterranean, African, and Southwest and Central Asian civilizations in the areas of art, architecture and culture; science, technology and mathematics; political life and ideas; philosophy and ethical beliefs; and military strategy. 7 – W3.1.6 Use historic and modern maps to locate and describe trade networks among empires in the classical era. 7 – W3.1.7 Use a case study to describe how trade integrated cultures and influenced the economy within empires (e.g., Assyrian and Persian trade networks or networks of Egypt and Nubia/Kush; or Phoenician and Greek networks). 7 – W3.1.8 Describe the role of state authority, military power, taxation systems, and institutions of coerced labor, including slavery, in building and maintaining empires (e.g., Han Empire, Mauryan Empire, Egypt, Greek city-states and the Roman Empire). 7 – W3.1.9 Describe the significance of legal codes, belief systems, written languages and communications in the development of large regional empires. 7 – W3.1.10 Create a time line that illustrates the rise and fall of classical empires during the classical period. W3.2 Growth and Development of World Religions
Explain how world religions or belief systems of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism and Islam grew and their significance. (Islam is included here even though it came after 300 C.E./A.D.) 7 – W3.2.1 Identify and describe the beliefs of the five major world religions. 7 – W3.2.2 Locate the geographical center of major religions and map the spread through the 3rd century C.E./A.D. 7 – W3.2.3 Identify and describe the ways that religions unified people’s perceptions of the world and contributed to cultural integration of large regions of Afro-Eurasia. 7 – G1.1.1 Explain and use a variety of maps, globes, and web based geography technology to study the world, including global, interregional, regional, and local scales. G1.2 Geographical Inquiry and Analysis
Use geographic inquiry and analysis to answer important questions about relationships between people, cultures, their environment, and relations within the larger world context. 7 – G1.2.1 Locate the major landforms, rivers and climate regions of the Eastern Hemisphere. 7 – G1.2.3 Use observations from air photos, photographs (print and CD), films (VCR and DVD) as the basis for answering geographic questions about the human and physical characteristics of places and regions. 7 – G1.2.6 Apply the skills of geographic inquiry (asking geographic questions, acquiring geographic information, organizing geographic information, analyzing geographic information, and answering geographic questions) to analyze a problem or issue of importance to a region of the Eastern Hemisphere. G1.3 Geographical Understanding
Use geographic themes, knowledge about processes and concepts to study the Earth. 7 – G1.3.1 Use the fundamental themes of geography (location, place, human environment interaction, movement, region) to describe regions or places on earth. 7 – G1.3.2 Explain the locations and distributions of physical and human characteristics of Earth by using knowledge of spatial patterns. 7 – G1.3.3 Explain the different ways in which places are connected and how those connections demonstrate interdependence and accessibility. G2 Places and Regions Describe the cultural groups and diversities among people that are rooted in particular places and in human constructs called regions. Analyze the physical and human characteristics of places and regions.
G2.1 Physical Characteristics of Place
Describe the physical characteristics of places. 7 – G2.1.1 Describe the landform features and the climate of the region (within the Western or Eastern Hemispheres) under study. G2.2 Human Characteristics of Place
Describe the human characteristics of places. 7 – G2.2.1 Describe the human characteristics of the region under study (including languages, religion, economic system, governmental system, cultural traditions). 7 – G2.2.2 Explain that communities are affected positively or negatively by changes in technology (e.g., increased manufacturing resulting in rural to urban migration in China, increased farming of fish, hydroelectric power generation at Three Gorges, pollution resulting from increased manufacturing and automobiles). G3.2 Ecosystems
Describe the characteristics and spatial distribution of ecosystems on the Earth’s surface. 7 – G3.2.2 Identify ecosystems of a continent and explain why some provide greater opportunities (fertile soil, precipitation) for humans to use than do other ecosystems and how that changes with technology (e.g., China’s humid east and arid west and the effects of irrigation technology). G4 Human Systems
Explain that human activities may be seen on Earth’s surface.
G4.1 Cultural Mosaic
Describe the characteristics, distribution and complexity of Earth’s cultural mosaic. 7 – G4.1.1 Identify and explain examples of cultural diffusion within the Eastern Hemisphere (e.g., the spread of sports, music, architecture, television, Internet, Bantu languages in Africa, Islam in Western Europe). G4.2 Technology Patterns and Networks
Describe how technology creates patterns and networks that connect people, products, and ideas. 7 – G4.2.1 List and describe the advantages and disadvantages of different technologies used to move people, products, and ideas throughout the world (e.g., opportunities for employment, entrepreneurial and educational opportunities using the Internet; the effects of technology on reducing the time necessary for communications and travel; the uses and effects of wireless technology in developing countries; and the spread of group and individual’s ideas as voice and image messages on electronic networks such as the Internet). G4.3 Patterns of Human Settlement
Describe patterns, processes, and functions of human settlement. 7 – G4.3.1 Identify places in the Eastern Hemisphere that have been modified to be suitable for settlement by describing the modifications that were necessary (e.g., Nile River irrigation, reclamation of land along the North Sea, planting trees in areas that have become desertified in Africa). 7 – G4.3.2 Describe patterns of settlement by using historical and modern maps (e.g., the location of the world’s mega cities, other cities located near coasts and navigable rivers, regions under environmental stress such as the Sahel). Copyright © 2001-2015 State of Michigan |
