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The Biggest Mistake Humans Ever Made?

Driving Question: How could the development of agriculture be considered both good and bad for humanity?

Everything changed for humanity once our foraging ancestors began to settle down in early farming communities. Agriculture not only dramatically changed the diets of early humans, but also their communities, lifestyles, networks, and systems of production and distribution—and these changes have had and continue to have massive consequences.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Learn about differing perspectives for why early humans made the transition from foraging to farming.
  2. Evaluate why some foraging communities began to farm and how farming led to more-complex societies.
  3. Use the historical thinking practice of causation to analyze why many early human communities made the switch from foraging to farming.

Vocab Terms:

  • agrarian
  • causation
  • domesticate
  • hierarchy
  • pathogen
  • surplus
STEP 1

Opener: The Biggest Mistake Humans Ever Made?

Teaching Tools

Check out this blog post External link to find out how causal thinking (and causal maps) helps students make sense of the past and beyond.

Practice creating a causal map for Jack and the Giant Beanstalk to identify cause-and-effect relationships and prepare you to understand the causes and consequences of the Agricultural Revolution.

STEP 2

Causes of Farming

Teaching Tools

Want to provide your students with feedback on how their causal thinking is developing? Check out the Causation Feedback Form.

The shift to farming was an important change, and not without consequences. In this article and activity, you’ll examine the bumpy road from foraging to farming.

STEP 3

Sell It!

Teaching Tools

Thinking about implementing Marketing 101? Check out this conversation External link for student exemplars and one teacher’s approach to this activity.

History is filled with choices: isolationism vs. internationalism, modernists vs. traditionalists, war vs. peace. You’ll face a choice of your own in this activity: foraging or farming?

STEP 4

Closer: The Biggest Mistake Humans Ever Made?

Teaching Tools

Get an idea of how other teachers use Unit Notebooks by checking out this conversation External link in the OER Project Teacher Community.

Extension Materials
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The video below will help you identify long-term impacts of agriculture on human governance, while the writing exercises will help you prepare to answer document-based questions that you’re likely to see on exams.
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Agricultural Governments

Historians suggest that the advent of farming led to the creation of states. You’ll examine the seeds of this argument in this video on farming and the state.

Farming and the State External link

Did farming create states? Were all states made by farmers, and did all farmers come to live in states? Two world historians share what they know about farming and the rise of states.

Key Ideas

As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.