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The Columbian Exchange

Driving Question: What were the causes and effects of the Columbian Exchange?

The connections between Afro-Eurasia and the Americas created a truly global network that would forever change the course of history. After 1492, plants, animals, people, ideas, and diseases crisscrossed oceans in a process called the Columbian Exchange.

Learning Ojectives:

  1. Evaluate how the Columbian Exchange transformed human communities and systems of production and distribution.
  2. Use the historical thinking skill of causation to assess the impacts of new global networks.
  3. Identify the crops and animals that moved to new places and the impacts they had on people in those places.
STEP 1

Opener: The Columbian Exchange

Teaching Tools

Want to map out the Columbian Exchange in more detail? You can download OER Project maps here External link .

The Columbian Exchange moved plants and animals all around our world, forever reshaping the foods we eat.

STEP 2

What Was the Columbian Exchange?

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and launched an era of connections linking Afro-Eurasia and the Americas. In this article and activity, you’ll track some of the many causes and effects of this exchange.

STEP 3

Food and the Columbian Exchange

Teaching Tools

OER Project teachers love World Zone Café. Read this conversation External link to learn about how other teachers implement this activity.

Can a plant change the world? Explore the major role plants played in everything from the environment to trade during the Columbian Exchange.

STEP 4

Closer: The Columbian Exchange

Teaching Tools

Read this blog post External link about the positives and negatives of interconnection as you prepare to teach this closer.

In this final activity of the lesson, you’ll consider the pros and cons of the Columbian Exchange as you determine where you stand on its effects.

Extension Materials
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These writing exercises will help you prepare to answer the sorts of document-based questions that you’re likely to see on exams.