Vocabulary
Geography
Atlas
Columbian Exchange
Potatoes!
100
The art and science of mapmaking
What is cartography?
100
European explorers crossed this ocean to get to North and South America.
What is the Atlantic Ocean?
100
There are two names for the boxes of information on maps within our Atlas. What is one of them?
Legend or key
100
What is meant by the phrase 'Columbian Exchange'?
The Americas had been geographically isolated from the rest of the world for millions of years by the time the Europeans sailed to their shores. Many different plants and animals had evolved during that period. The Columbian Exchange was the transfer of these different plants, animals, and culture between the Old and New Worlds.
100
How did the Spaniards describe potatoes when they first found them?
As a strange-looking vegetable
200

Using either compass directions or your hands and arms, demonstrate the difference between latitude and longitude.

Latitude lines run east to west (horizontal, parallel to the equator); longitude lines run north to south (vertical, parallel to the Prime Meridian)
200
Slaves were brought to the Americas from this continent.
What is Africa?
200
On Wednesday we copied colored lines from the Atlas onto our world maps. What do these lines represent, and why did we use different colors to draw them?
They are routes of European explorers like Hudson, Columbus, and Vespucci. The different colors represent the different countries that paid them to make their voyages.
200
What was one of the diseases that was brought to the Americas from the Old World?
Possibilities: malaria, measles, or smallpox
200
Name two ways the Incas used potatoes.
They ate them and used them as a source of healing.
300

An economic system based on investment of money for profit; a system where private companies and/or individuals run most industries

What is capitalism?
300
Explorers like Ponce de Leon and Columbus traveled from Spain in this cardinal direction to reach the New World.
What is west?
300
The map of the Americas in 1750 lists four main economic activities in the various colonial regions. What were two of them? (Another group may steal if they can list more than the original group.)
Mining, plantation farming, fur trapping, and fishing
300
Name three animals that were exchanged across the Atlantic.
Possibilities: turkeys, cattle, chickens, horses, pigs, sheep
300

Describe how the Inca people preserved potatoes.

They froze them overnight, then stomped all the moisture out over a period of 4-5 days to turn them into a kind of flour that stayed good for several years.

400

an economic system by which nations try to gather as much gold and silver as possible by controlling trade and establishing colonies

What is mercantalism?
400
These five European countries claimed land in the Americans during the Age of Exploration.
What are England, France, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands?
400
The colonization of the Americas by Europe resulted in catastrophic loss of life of Native American Indians who had already been living in North and South America for thousands of years. What two great American civilizations were destroyed by Spanish conquistadors?
The Aztec and Inca empires.
400
Millions of Africans were enslaved and forced to work in the Americas. Where were most of these people taken?
Brazil
400
The potato was a staple food for people throughout the Inca Empire, but why was it especially important for people in the highlands?
Because maize (corn), which was a primary food source for these people, wouldn't grow in the highlands.
500
Compare and contrast capitalism and mercantilism.
Both are economic systems that nations use to gain wealth and compete for control of industries, but capitalism allows individuals and companies control over the system, while in mercantilism the government controls all economic activity.
500
Describe which parts of the Americas were colonized by Spain, England, and France using names of continents, modern countries, and/or geographical regions.
Spain colonized the southern portions of North America, the islands of the Caribbean, and lands throughout South America. England and France primarily colonized lands in North America in what are now the United States and Canada.
500
Pages 82 and 83 in our Atlas represent European exploration and colonization efforts in the Americas by 1640 and 1750, respectively. Describe two major differences between these two maps. (Hint: A lot can change in 100 years. What were Europeans doing in the Americas?) 
The second map includes the main economic activities of the different colonial regions, a lot more land had been settled by this time, and many cities had been founded.
500
Name five of the plants, animals, and foods that were brought from the New World back to the Old.
Possibilities: quinine, rubber, tobacco, turkeys, beans, cacao, corn, peanuts, vanilla, chili peppers, pineapples, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, black-eyed Susans, marigolds, petunias, poinsettias, sunflowers
500
Why does the author describe Spaniards taking potatoes back to Europe as a "twist of history"?
The Spanish conquistadors were looking for gold and silver, which was extremely valuable to them. However, the potato ended up being more valuable to the Europeans in the centuries after its discovery than gold and silver ever could have been.
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