Christopher Columbus Research Paper

Education in today’s world is very important. It provides the foundation for youthful minds, leading to broadening mindscapes and growth with beneficial knowledge that prepares them for the future. One of the first things that students learn in our society, however, is how our world came to be today, and who discovered it. And as they will learn, the man behind the great find is Christopher Columbus, who sailed over from Spain looking for a faster route to Asia, and accidentally finding what we call our home today. The story behind this discovery is truly fascinating, but how it is taught is still a significant issue. Elementary schools, specifically. Nonetheless, there are some ways teachers have used that are proving to be a huge success

For example, in his journal titled Journal of the First Voyage of Columbus, that was copied by Bartolome de las Casas, students could take a small excerpt, such as a piece from page 6, and read: “I saw one give 16 skeins of cotton for three ceotis [coins] of Portugal, equal to one blanca of Spain, the skeins being as much as an arroba of cotton thread. I shall keep it, and shall allow no one to take it, preserving it all for your Highnesses, for it may be obtained in abundance.” Once the students are finished, they will have to form an opinion about Columbus, and reflect on whether what he is doing will result positively or negatively for the future of the colonization of the New World. This lesson type is very productive, because it first of all gives the children a view of what he was doing, and from there, a critical discussion can be created, contemplating whether or not what Columbus is doing will benefit or harm the way that the New World is colonized in the end. This type of teaching substantially helps the students with their critical thinking

First, the students would perform research on Columbus and how the New World was colonized, and second they would present some form of technological presentation such as PowerPoint based on their findings, where the other students in the class would then grade the presenter based on how well they did, or how well they “taught” the class. For example, a student could choose a topic about Columbus, and then present how he leads to the colonization of the New World. They could first go into The American Yawp, edited by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright, and talk about how “On October 12, 1492, after two months at sea, the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria and their ninety men landed in the modern-day Bahamas.” Then, after describing the landing and what Columbus and his men found, the student could talk about the colonization of the New World and its impact, saying how “Dobyns estimated that in the first 130 years following European contact, 95 percent of Native Americans perished… Smallpox, typhus, the bubonic plague, influenza, mumps, measles: pandemics ravaged populations up and down the continents... Disease flung whole communities into chaos. Others it destroyed completely.” Once finished, the other students can grade how well the presenter taught their material they collected in the class. In this