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NOVA scienceNOW: Maya
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Viewing Ideas
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Before Watching
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Locate and research Mayan cities. Help students learn
where Mexico and Central America are located. Have them find
these areas on a world map. Tell them that the ancient Mayan
population numbered in the millions. To help students better
understand how widespread Mayan culture and civilization was,
assign groups of students an ancient city (you might choose
Tikal, Copán, Mérída, Bonampaque, and
Palenque) to research on the Internet. Have each group discover
in what present-day country their city is located, and in what
areas any ruins can be found.
(The cities are located in the following countries: Tikal,
Guatemala; Copán, Honduras; Mérída,
Mexico; Bonampaque, Mexico; and Palenque, Mexico.) Students might also want to note other pertinent information,
such as details about the people and their lives. After students
complete their research, have them draw a map of the country,
mark their city's location on the map, and label and draw any
ruins they discovered in their research. If they like, students
can also include notes, art, or photos of some of the other
details that they learned about the Mayans. Student groups can
present their maps to the class.
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Make a time line of Mayan civilization. Ask students why
it is important to understand what life was like hundreds or
thousands of years ago. Why is it important to investigate past
cultures? (We can often learn about our own culture by studying past
cultures.) Have the class make a time line of Mayan civilization.
Possible time periods: all of B.C., A.D. 100-900, A.D. 901-1541.
Have students write and draw information on index cards or stock
paper. They should include skills and technologies that were
developed (e.g., farming around B.C. 2000, writing around B.C.
700, solar calendar around B.C. 400), the approximate beginning
and end of cities (e.g., Teotihuacan: B.C. 200-A.D. 600, Tikal:
B.C. 200-A.D. 900), the arrival of other groups (e.g., the
Spanish, in particular Hernandez de Cordoba), the appearance of
new diseases, and conflicts that arose (e.g., the Spanish
conquered the Maya around A.D. 1540). When the class is
finished, have groups order their cards chronologically and clip
them, using clothespins or paper clips, to a string or rope
strung across a wall or the board in the classroom. Have groups
present their time line section.
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Create a display of Mayan culture and technology. Divide
the class into groups, and have students use the Mayan time line
as a starting point for cultural information. Provide art
supplies to each group and ask one group to make a clay or
cardboard Mayan pyramid, one group to make a chart showing and
explaining a Mayan calendar (Mayans understood that the year was
slightly longer than 365 days), one group to demonstrate the
Mayan writing system by making a sample page from a book, and
one group to illustrate and explain a Mayan myth. Display
student work.
After Watching
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Consider the positives and negatives of technological
developments.
The segment concludes by suggesting that Mayan civilization and
technology may have contributed to a serious drought that
resulted in the fall of some Mayan cities. Technological
inventions and developments often have "good news, bad news"
aspects to them. Brainstorm how this may have been the case for
some Mayan cities such as Tikal, and then extend the discussion
to consider 20th- and 21st-century
technological developments.
(A highly developed irrigation system allows a culture to
develop and thrive, but it can deplete water resources and may
result in land and water pollution via hazardous chemicals,
such as pesticides; automobiles, trains, and planes allow
people to travel, but the exhaust from their engines pollutes
the environment; computers have abundant uses, including in
medical devices that help people live longer lives, but
computers also contain hazardous waste material.)
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Brainstorm and research actual spin-offs for NASA
technologies.
Remote sensing is a technology that was used at least 150 years
ago for topographic map-making using images taken by cameras
attached to balloons, and later, it was used by the military to
obtain aerial views of large ground areas. Remote sensing
technology has been included in satellites and adapted by NASA
for many uses such as observing Earth's weather patterns and
locating natural resources. Because satellite remote sensing can
detect infrared radiation and reveal hidden land details on
computer-generated maps, scientists in the program segment used
it to locate Mayan ruins. Have students brainstorm familiar
materials or technologies that were designed for a specific
purpose and that later proved useful for everyday life. Students
may choose to look at technologies developed by NASA.
(Some materials include Teflon, Tang, freeze-dried ice cream,
and memory foam [which is now used for pillows and mattresses
but was developed to pad the seats on spacecrafts.]) Have student teams visit Covering the Cutting Edge: 25 Years of
NASA Tech Briefs (www.nasatech.com/Features/timeline/timeline.html) or NASA Spinoffs Extend Life on Earth (www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/technologies/human_spaceflight.html), and choose two technologies to research and present to the
class.
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Experiment to find out how fertilizers affect plant
growth.
In the program segment, scientists used remote-sensing
satellites to locate areas where Mayan structures seeped
limestone into the soil and changed the vegetation. These areas
show up as lighter in the computer-generated maps. Consider with
students how excess limestone or other minerals in the soil
might change the vegetation of a region. Divide the class into
groups. Have each group grow grass or beans. (Note: Choose only
one type of plant for the class to grow.) Ask groups to set up a
control and a test plant, and have groups observe and keep a
record of the effect of fertilizers enriched with specific (and
different for each group) minerals. Fertilizers you might use
include powdered lime dissolved in water (see package
instructions), ashes from the fireplace, ammonium nitrate
fertilizer, or calcium carbonate from the school's laboratory.
You might choose to have two groups test each fertilizer to see
if they get different results. Have students share their
findings.
Web Sites
NOVA scienceNOW
www.pbs.org/nova/sciencenow/3401/03.html
Offers Mayan-related resources, streamed video, reports by experts,
and an activity that allows one to explore a 2,000 year old Mayan
mural.
Collapse: Why Do Civilizations Fall? The Maya
www.learner.org/exhibits/collapse/
Discusses Mayan territory and the collapse of Copán, a Mayan
site located in western Honduras.
Making Sense of the Mayan Collapse
www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/
features/F_Making_Sense_of_Mayan_Collapse_5-8.html
Describes scientists' work using remote sensing to identify the
location of Mayan ruins in the Guatemalan jungle.
Maya Civilization Time Line
www.civilization.ca/civil/maya/mmc09eng.html
Presents a time line with links to highlighted time line features.
Books
Daily Life in Maya Civilization
by Robert J. Sharer. Greenwood Press, 1996.
Presents a study of Mayan culture and includes the way in which
archeologists study Mayan sites and reconstruct what Mayan societies
were like.
Eyewitness: Aztec, Inca and Maya
by Elizabeth Baquedano. Dorling Kindersley, 2001.
Introduces students to three different civilizations of the
Americas, including the Mayan civilization.
Pyramid
by James Putnam, Peter Hayman, and Geoff Brightling. Dorling
Kindersley, 2004.
Includes photographs and descriptions of pyramids in Mexico and
Central America.
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