Mountain Avenue Elementary School

TCI Unit 2

Age of Exploration (Lessons 4-5)

During this unit, you will analyze a variety of maps, images, and primary sources to learn about European exploration of North America. In Lesson 4, How and Why Europeans Came to the New World, you'll find out how archaeologists use artifacts to research the expeditions that reached North America. You will also read about the motivations some explorers had in coming to the New World. Additionally, you'll learn about various technologies and advancements that helped improve exploration and the resulting global exchange of plants, animals, people, and diseases.

In Lesson 5, Routes of Exploration to the New World, you'll read about eight different explorers, each with a different perspective, who aimed to make novel discoveries that would benefit themselves and their homelands. Mapping their routes and tracking the lands they claimed will help you discover their motives and learn about their successes and failures. Finally, you'll evaluate the lasting historical significance of their discoveries as well as the negative effects their arrivals had on the Western Hemisphere and American Indians.