HISTORY:
Rivers: Where
Civilizations Start
Today's Snack: Since we're studying rivers and their impact on
history, it makes sense to have a LIQUID snack. How about heating up some
individually-packaged soup, such as chicken noodle or Ramen noodle? Eat with
crackers and drink a river of milk!
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Supplies:
World map,
either photocopied from a reference book
or printed
out from online
Colored
pencils if you're using paper
Chalk if
you're using a blackboard or parking lot
Did you know that most ancient civilizations sprang up around
rivers? History shows us that the first cities were always on big rivers, and
there are many reasons why:
§
People need
water, and freshwater rivers are fantastic water supplies.
§
The soil
near rivers is more fertile than anywhere else because of spring runoff; land
near rivers is the best place to farm and grow food.
§
You can
travel up and down rivers more easily than over land, so it is easier to
transport goods and people in and out of an area by water, making it easier to
trade and prosper.
There are several very important ancient civilizations that all
centered around rivers. A great start at learning ancient history is learning
about these rivers and the people who lived around them.
Find these rivers on a world map - use an index if needed. You can
use colored pencils on a printout of a world map, or if you are in a group, you
can use chalk on the blackboard.
If there is a big enough space in a parking lot that is safe, you
can expand the scope of your map and draw the "world" and the rivers on a
larger scale outside.
Draw or label the land masses that the rivers flow through (the
shapes of the continents or countries). Draw the rivers and title them. Show
what oceans or seas the rivers emptied into.
Then color in areas that showed where the people groups lived for
each of these rivers. Take a look at how those people had access to other
civilizations thanks to "their" rivers emptying into oceans, making travel to
faraway places more feasible.
Finally, look up in a reference book about the dates that these
river civilizations existed, with a few facts about what their main products
were, or who their most famous leaders were.
Here are the rivers for your study:
Tigris River (TIE-griss)
Euphrates River (you-FRATE-eez)
-- These two rivers were important in Mesopotamia (Iraq)
Nile River (n-eye-l)
-- Egypt
Indus River (IND-uss)
-- India
Hwang Ho or Yellow River
-- China
Extra credit: the Mississippi River and the Missouri River are two
of the most important rivers in American history. Read up a little about these
rivers. Draw them on a U.S map. Write a paragraph about each of them and how
they contributed to the development of the United States.
