Cookie Policy

Our website uses cookies to understand content and feature usage to drive site improvements over time. To learn more, review our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Four World Zones Connect

Driving Question: What are the pros and cons of the interconnection of the four world zones?

How did connecting once-isolated continents reshape the world? Explore the ripple effects of the Columbian Exchange to uncover how the flow of goods, ideas, diseases, and people transformed global life and made it more complex than ever.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Explain how the interconnection of the four world zones increased complexity.
  2. Assess the consequences of the Columbian Exchange.

Vocab Terms:

  • biodiversity
  • cash crop
  • Columbian Exchange
  • economy
  • Transatlantic slave trade
  • world zone
STEP 1

Opener: Four World Zones Connect

Teaching Tools

To teach this lesson step, refer to page X of the Lesson 6.2 Teaching Guide Locked .

Imagine living in the late 1400s when the known world doubled in size! People in the Americas didn’t know about those in Afro-Eurasia and vice versa. Time for you to figure out where some crops and animals originated.

STEP 2

The World Connects

Teaching Tools

To teach this lesson step, refer to page X of the Lesson 6.2 Teaching Guide Locked .

Our online teacher community offers suggestions for scaffolding the Three-Step Reading process External link .

We’ve been talking about world zones a lot, so let’s take some time to define them, and figure out how some came to be more powerful than others.

STEP 3

An Accidental Discovery

Teaching Tools

To teach this lesson step, refer to page X of the Lesson 6.2 Teaching Guide Locked .

Check out this discussion External link on our online teacher community for ideas on teaching the Columbian Exchange.

Our Causation One-Pager is a great resource for how to teach this important skill.

The Columbian Exchange is the name historians give to the transfer of goods, ideas, and even diseases between the Afro-Eurasian and American world zones. Here’s how it all went down.

The Columbian Exchange External link

Coming Soon!
We have the Columbian Exchange to thank for potatoes in Ireland and tomatoes in Italy. While global connection increased the complexity of the world, that connection came at a steep price.
STEP 4

Economic Changes

Teaching Tools

To teach this lesson step, refer to page X of the Lesson 6.2 Teaching Guide Locked .

This blog post External link provides tips for teaching globalization and connecting it to contemporary issues.

New world zones, new products, new demands. Economies around the globe changed as new connections formed during the Columbian Exchange. This next article explores those changes.

STEP 5

Closer: Four World Zones Connect

Teaching Tools

To teach this lesson step, refer to page X of the Lesson 6.2 Teaching Guide Locked .

Join our online teacher community here External link to engage with other educators about Big History Project.

Extension Materials
Checkmark Alert Banner
Expanding networks had both positive and negative impacts. Check out the graphic biographies, article, and assessment below to find out how.
...

The Explorers

Teaching Tools

To teach this lesson step, refer to page X of the Lesson 6.2 Teaching Guide Locked .

Comics in the classroom? Check out our Graphic Biographies Lesson Plan for guidance on using Graphic Biographies.

When you think of explorers you might imagine Spanish conquistadors or modern astronauts, but some of the greatest explorers who ever lived were curious people who built upon centuries of collective learning.