Inca Achievements and Challenges Lesson

This is an Inca Achievements and Challenges Lesson.

National Curriculum Standards:

• Learners will understand consequences of science and technology for individuals and societies.

• Learners will understand mechanisms by which governments meet the needs and wants of citizens, regulate territory, manage conflict, establish order and security, and balance competing conceptions of a just society.

• Learners will be able to formulate possible solutions that utilize technology, address real-life issues and problems, weigh alternatives, and provide reasons for preferred choices and plans of action.

Specific Objectives:

Students will come up with solutions to various challenges that the Inca faced, whether it be governmental or technological. In this way, students will learn the various Inca achievements.

Materials:

The worksheet provided here.

Lesson:

Before you learn about the various Inca achievements, you may want to lecture briefly on the historical characters and events responsible for Inca expansion and empire. After you have established the vastness of the Inca empire, then you can start teaching about the various Inca achievements. Mention that the Inca are known for very special features and achievements. For example, they built great buildings in earthquake zones that have stood the test of time (better than some of our modern Chilean buildings) without using mortar! Then tell students that they will all represent Inca government officials trying to come up to solutions to various challenges, which in turn will reveal the various Inca achievements. The worksheets are pretty self-explanatory for the students. You may want them to work in pairs. 

When students are finished, then you go over it by explaining how they really resolved the challenges. It doesn’t matter if they did not come up with an answer that was historical. The point is that they thought it through and that makes them remember it better when the real answer is given out to them in the end.

An editable 6-page Word doc