Alice Soler

Samuel Gompers

Today people can contact each other as fast as a click of a mouse connecting to places thousands of miles away. Our age is called the Age of Information allowing the spread of ideas to travel quickly. In the past, connecting to other cultures was a much slower process. People did however connect. During 1200-1500, civilization grew along their separate paths but also came to influence each other more than in the previous civilizations. This connection was often done through migration, trade, or warfare. Sometimes, the connection had a positive impact while other times it was negative. For example, the Japanese “selectively borrowed” many of the customs and traditions from the Chinese. The Mongols were fierce nomadic warriors from Central Asia that conquered all territories from the Black Sea to China. Europe began to come out of the “Dark Ages” through the introduction of trade. The Bubonic Plague spread to Europe through trade killing a third of the population.

Your job, to surf through the internet, will be a much quicker and safer connection. You will be looking at specific topics to see how different cultures connected to each other. You will look at how they developed, what social, economic and political problems they faced, and how they chose to solve their problems.

Task

Choose a topic from the following selection

Early Japan and Japanese feudalism

The Mongol Empire

The Ming Dynasty

The Revival of Trade in Europe

The Bubonic Plague

Create a PowerPoint presentation with a minimum of seven slides. You must have a minimum of 3 pictures from the internet which may include maps, landscape, people or graphs.
Write a two page research paper on your topic. Your research paper must include a cover page and a bibliography. There is a minimum of 2 articles and one encyclopedia. Text books may be additional but not the primary source of information.
You must create a poster with the topic and the primary theme in the center. The poster like the PowerPoint is a visual. There should only be a brief explanation of the picture.

Process:

Define the theme or themes that your topic will focus on.
Provide background information on how that civilization developed.
Identify a social problem that the civilization was confronting.
Discuss what public policy or solution did the civilization create to deal with the problem.
Evaluate and create and alternative solution to the problem the civilization was confronting.

Resources:

The PPA resources and links provided below are a series of steps that will help you clarify information needed to effectively complete your projects.

RESOURCES:

Your must fill out the worksheet to help keep you focused.

1. What is the problem?

2. Where is the evidence?

3. What are the causes?

4. What is the existing policy?

5. What policies can you create to correct the problem?

6. What is the best policy to correct the problem?

Other Sites

1. Japan http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ANCJAPAN/YAMATO.HTM

2. TIPS Resources

3. Ming Dynasty http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MING/MING.HTM

4. The Mongol Empire http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2532/page4.html

5. The Revival of trade in Europe http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/maps/hanse.jpg

6. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/maps/mongols2map.jpg

7. http://www.astaspice.org/history/history_03.htm

8. Bubonic Plague http://www.mrdowling.com/703-plague.html

9. http://www.learner.org/exhibits/renaissance/middleages.html

EVALUATION

Your report will be graded based on the following criteria. Each report will be considered a separate grade with a separate score.

Objective	Unsatisfactory	Satisfactory	Excellent	Earned Points
Identify the Problem	0 points • Does not accurately identify a social problem • No worksheet	5 points • Identifies a social problem experienced • Partially completed worksheet.	10 points • Accurate description of specific social problem at a specific time in Athens's history • Completed worksheet.
Gather the Evidence	0 points • Does not provide evidence of a social problem • No worksheet	5 points • Vague or inaccurate evidence to support the existence of a social problem • Partially completed worksheet.	10 points • Accurate and complete examples to support the existence of a specific social problem at a specific time in history • Completed worksheet.
Describe the Causes of the Problem	0 points Does not accurately describe the cause of a social problem s that existed. No worksheet	5 points • Vague or inaccurate description of the causes of a social problem experienced • Partially completed worksheet.	10 points • Accurate description of the causes of a specific social problem at a specific time in history • Completed worksheet.
Evaluate the Policy	0 points Does not identify or evaluate a policy that attempted to address the social problem that existed; does not offer alternative policy	5 points • Identifies a policy that attempted to address the social problem • Does not evaluate the policy and/or does not offer alternative policy • Partially completed worksheet.	10 points • Identifies and evaluates a policy that attempted to address the specific social problem at a specific time in history • Offers an alternative policy • Completed worksheet.
			Score:

Conclusion

At the end of your Web Quest you should have three separate products for your one topic. Each product taps into your different learning styles. It provides you with a self analysis of how you best understood the material and how your audience responded to each presentation. Your Web quest exposed you to the various types of information on the internet. PPA taught you to identify and analyze social problems, look at what policies in government were created to solve these problems and discover an evaluation process that judges the solutions chosen by that society.