Grade 7: World History and Geography: Medieval and Early Modern Times
by rene delgado
1. Southwestern Asia, 300-1200; Persia and the World of Islam
2. South Asia, 300-1200
3. East Asia, 300-1300: China and Japan
4. West Africa, 900-1400
5. Global Convergence, 1450-1750
6. How did the environment affect the development and expansion of the Persian Empire, Muslim empires, and cities? What impact did this expansion have on the environment?
7. How did Islam develop and change over time? How did Islam spread to multiple cultures?
8. What were the multiple ways people of different cultures interacted at sites of encounter, such as Baghdad?
9. What did the interaction of Arab, Persian, Greek, Hellenistic, and Indian ideas and technologies at Baghdad (and the Abbasid Caliphate) produce?
10. Was there more trade (with peace and tolerance) or conflict (especially between religious groups)?
11. How did the Muslim empires and institutions help different regions of Afroeurasia become more interconnected.
12. Under the Gupta Empire, how did the environment, cultural and religious changes, and technological innovations affect the people of India?
13. How did Hinduism change over time?
14. How did Indian monks, nuns, merchants, travelers, and empires from what is now modern India and other parts of South Asia spread religious ideas and practices and cultural styles of art and architecture to Central and Southeast Asia?
15. How did Buddhism spread and change over time?
16. How did the Tang and Song Dynasties gain and maintain power over people and territories?
17. How did the environmental conditions and technological innovations cause the medieval economic revolution? What were the effects of this revolution?
18. Why did Quanzhou become such an important site of encounter?
19. How did Chinese culture, ideas and technologies, and Buddhism influence Korea and Japan?
20. What influence did samurai customs and values have on the government and society of medieval Japan?
21. How did the environment affect the development and expansion of the Ghana and Mali Empires and the trade networks that connected them to the rest of Afroeurasia?
22. Why was Mali a site of encounter? What were the effects of the exchanges at Mali?
23. How did Arab/North African and West African perspectives differ on West African kingdoms?
24. What impact did human expansion in the voyages of exploration have on the environment, trade networks, and global interconnection?
25. What were the causes of colonialism? What were the effects of colonialism on the colonized people?
26. Why did the Europeans use colonialism to interact with Native Americans and some Southeast Asians?
27. How did the gunpowder empires (Ming/ Manchu China, Mughal India, Safavid Persia, Ottoman Empire, Russia, Spain, later France and England) extend their power over people and territories?
28. Activity: Students will watch a video about the effects of colonialism on multiple different cultures, and have them write down the ways in how this form of exchange was unequal and exploitative.
29. Was slavery always racial?
30. The World in 300 CE
31. Rome, 300 CE - 1200
32. The Americas, 300-1490
33. Sites of Encounter in Medieval World, 1150-1490
34. The Impact of Ideas, 1500-1750
35. How interconnected were the distant regions of the world in 300 CE?
36. How did the distant regions of the world become more interconnected through medieval and early modern times?
37. How was Rome a site of encounter?
38. How did the Roman Empire gain and maintain power over people and territories?
39. Did the Roman Empire fall?
40. How did the decentralized system of feudalism control people but weaken state power?
41. Activity: Have students separated into the different classes of feudalism, so they can see the effects of feudalism. Two kingdoms where one student each is the ruler king/queen. (Depending on the size of the classroom) Each ruler has Dukes that they rule, who have Counts, who have Barons, who have Mayors.
42. Christendom, 300 CE-1200
43. How did the religion of Christianity develop and change over time? How did Christianity spread through the empire and to other cultures?
44. How did the religion of Christianity develop and change over time?
45. How did the environment and technological innovations affect the growth of medieval Christendom? What impact did human expansion have on the environment?
46. How did the environment affect the expansion of agriculture, population, cities, and empires in Mesoamerica and the Andean region?
47. Why did the Maya civilization gain power over people and territories?
48. Why did the Aztec Empire gain power over people and territories?
49. How did Mesoamerican religion change over time?
50. Under the Aztecs, why was Tenochtitlán a site of encounter?
51. Why did the Inca Empire gain power over people and territories?
52. How did the Mongol Empire destroy states and increase the interconnection of Afroeurasia?
53. What were the effects of the exchanges at Majorca?
54. What were the effects of the exchanges at Calicut?
55. How did increasing interconnection and trade, competition between states (and their people), and technological innovations lead to voyages of exploration?
56. Activity: Students will be split up into different groups, all representing a different civilization that carries certain technologies and ideas. Make a game where the first group to have three or four unique ideas and technologies is the winner, while also creating "trade routes" that students will have to follow to trade a card with another table. The routes should make it so certain groups have an advantage, showing the desire of some civilizations to lead to wanting voyages of exploration to find new routes. These new routes will let them make their own route only they can use.
57. How did the Reformation divide the Christian Church, millions of people, and European states?
58. How did world religions change and spread during the early modern period?
59. What were the effects of the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution?
60. What were the effects of the Scientific Revolution? What modern ideas or technologies came from this invention or discovery?
61. Why were natural rights, the social contract, and other ideas of the Enlightenment revolutionary?
