May 27, 2011

Science and History Collide

A couple of weeks ago, Casia was learning about the skeletal system in science. She had fun memorizing all the major bones in the body and learning about the structure of bones and how they move at various joints. During this time, she also started a unit on Native American civilizations and European explorers. It was a happy surprise when the two unit happened to overlap while watching the video called "Great Inca Rebellion"

It's a National Geographic film and it takes a look at Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire and the physical evidence that supports the idea that he had a tremendous amount of help from other indigenous people who were enemies of the Incas. The medical anthropologists reveal new evidence unearthed in a hastily made burial ground. While we were watching the video, they made mentioned of many of the bones Casia had just learned and she was very excited when she realized that she knew exactly which bone they were referring to! I love it when a lesson immediately demonstrates itself to be useful.

We also watched a couple more movies that I highly recommend. "Cracking the Maya Code" was a Nova video about the anthropologists who  spent decades trying to understand the meaning of the Mayan hieroglyphs. This was one of Casia's favorites. She really enjoyed the artistic nature of the hieroglyphs and the puzzle to solve their meaning. Her other favorite was Nova's "Ghosts of Machu Picchu". In it, they showed the elaborate design and incredible engineering that went into building Machu Picchua. Casia really enjoys architecture and this video gave  her a fascinating look into the difficulties of building an enormous estate high atop the mountains and how the ancient architects were able to overcome the abundant rainfall that allowed it to remain intact five centuries later.


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