Students investigate why European explorers set sail across unknown oceans, what they found, and how their arrival forever changed the Americas — for better and, for Indigenous peoples, often for far worse.
Students will be able to…
Sailing into an unknown ocean was terrifying and dangerous. Why did explorers risk it — and what happened when two worlds that had never met suddenly collided?
Project this and tap each part of the story — the reasons, the tools, the voyages, and the lasting effects on both worlds.
Tap any phase to open the teacher moves and student actions.
Would you sail off a map with no idea what’s ahead?
Students investigate.
Students analyze.
Students conclude.
Students take action.
Aligned to the C3 Framework for Social Studies and Common Core literacy in social studies.
Explain probable causes and effects of events and developments.
Compare life in specific historical time periods to life today.
Create and use a chronological sequence of related events.
Explain the relationships between events and ideas in a historical text.
Preview the three formative checks. Tap “Sample answer” to see what mastery looks like — hide them before you print for students.
Have students trace an explorer’s route on a world map and label where they started, where they landed, and who already lived there. A printable voyage map is in the Social Studies library.
Tap a card to flip it, then rate whether you knew it. Built from this lesson’s vocabulary.
A quick self-check with instant feedback, drawn from this lesson’s key terms.
A print-and-go review sheet with a built-in answer key. Tap “Show answer key” to reveal answers, or print the clean version for students.