Topic: Great discoveries and their heroes

Supplementary material for use in lessons in the group of natural sciences (nature, biology, chemistry, geography, physics), additional classes, science clubs. It can serve as a resource for expanding knowledge, preparing students for science competitions.

Target group

Students of an elementary school.

Core Curriculum

VIII. Great geographical discoveries. Pupil:

1. explains the causes and evaluates the impact of geographical discoveries on the socio‑economic and cultural life of Europe and the New World;

2. places Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan's expeditions and places in the space of the colonial properties of Portugal and Spain.

General aim of education

Students present the characters of great travelers.

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn.

Criteria for success
The student will learn:

• present the significance of great geographical discoveries;

• indicate the participation of Polish researchers and travelers in learning about the world.

Methods/techniques

• expository

  • talk.

• activating

  • discussion.

• programmed

  • with computer;

  • with e‑textbook.

• practical

  • exercices concerned.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• activity in groups;

• collective activity.

Teaching aids

• e‑textbook;

• notebook and crayons/felt‑tip pens;

• interactive whiteboard, tablets/computers;

• cards with names of various discoverers (eg. Magdynana, James Cook, Edmund Strzelecki, Antoni Dybowski, Henryk Arctowski and Antoni Dobrowolski);

• world map;

• traveler props gathered by the teacher.

Lesson plan overview

Before classes

• Students get acquainted with the content of the abstract. They prepare to work on the lesson in such a way to be able to summarize the material read in their own words and solve the tasks themselves.

Introduction

• The teacher gives the topic, the goals of the lesson in a language understandable for the student, and the criteria of success.

Realization

• The teacher divides the students into groups. Their representatives draw cards with the names of various explorers. The task of each team is to search the available sources (eg on the Internet) for the description of the expedition conducted by the drawn discoverer and to prepare, based on the information collected, the scenario scenario, illustrating the most important moments of the expedition.

• Students assign roles, choose appropriate props and play scenes. The teacher asks for insights and reflections on the presented situations. He asks the mentees about the importance of great geographical discoveries.

• The teacher instructs selected students to perform interactive exercises No. 2, No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 on the interactive whiteboard. The students check if they gave correct answers. If they are correct, they justify them.

• Students get acquainted with the content of the abstract and then perform interactive exercises that have not been done correctly before. They discuss the right answers.

• Participants familiarize themselves with the content presented in the interactive illustration. Then the teacher discusses the issues with the students.

Summary

• Students independently perform interactive exercise No. 1.

Homework

• Develop a lap book containing issues learned during the lesson and bring your work to the next class.

• Listen to the abstract recording at home. Pay attention to pronunciation, accent and intonation. Learn to pronounce the words learned during the lesson.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Great discoveries and their heroes

For several thousand years people have been traveling for commercial purposes and also leading wars. Initially, when compasses were not invented, sea travels took place only along the shore. Using the compass allowed for traveling through the open ocean.

At the end of the fifteenth century, Europeans discovered America. Gold and raw materials were extracted from there, and vegetables and fruit were brought back. In 1488 years the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias sailed to the southernmost tip of Africa. Ten years later, another Portuguese, Vasco da Gama, traveled to India by sea for the first time. The Far East was the source of „roots”, as various spices were called at that time. His discovery was of great importance in trade. One of the most important trips was a cruise around the world by Ferdinand Magellan. This Portuguese sailor organized an expedition with the money of the Spanish king, who set off in 1519, travelling towards the west. Ships circumnavigated South America from the strait, later called the name of the discoverer (Strait of Magellan), they swam through the Pacific Ocean and reached the Philippines, where Magellan died at the hands of the Filipinos. The other members of the expedition returned to Spain in September 1522, proving the spherical shape of the Earth.

In the eighteenth century James Cook he was the first European to study the northern coast of Australia and recognize that this land is habitable. However, it was only at the beginning of the 19th century that the first Europeans settled there.

Many Poles took part in getting to know the world. A perfect example are the achievements of Edmund Strzelecki. This Polish traveler, geographer and geologist in 1834 set out on a scientific journey around the world, which took him 9 years. He explored North America and South America. Then he explored Hawaii and the islands of Polynesia. His greatest fame, however, came from the research of New Zealand and Australia.

Antoni Dybowski was one of the most outstanding naturalists of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Antarctic researchers also had a significant share in getting to know the world – Henryk Arctowski and Antoni Dobrowolski. Their name bears the Polish Antarctic Station. Ignacy Domeyko studied geology and searched for mineral resources in Chile. Benedykt Dybowski, Aleksander Czekanowski and Jan Czerski studied Siberia. The names of Czerski and Czekanowski are give name to the great mountain ranges.

Also today, our compatriots are climbing unconquered peaks or setting new routes. The latest achievement of Poles is to reach the sources of the Amazon. One of their discoverers is Piotr Chmielinski, who was the first in 1985 to sail across the entire Amazon River - almost 7,000 kilometers.

Exploratory expeditions allow you to get to know the world and broaden your knowledge about it. They allow to describe all geographic and biological objects on Earth. They help to protect them and disseminate knowledge about them.

• We owe the knowledge of the world to the revealing passion of many people.

• Many Poles took part in getting to know all the continents and their nature.