Day 125: The Fall of the Aztecs (4/10/2012)

Standard: 7.7.7 Explain how and where each empire arose and how the Aztec and Incan empires were defeated by the Spanish.

Aim:  The historians of 2017 will investigate Hernan Cortez' conquest of the Aztec empire and create a presentation where they tell the story of Cortez to their teammates.

1. Quick Question: Does one country or group of people have the right to come in and take over another country?

2. In the movie Avatar, the humans travel to the planet because they want to have access to the valuable element "unobtainium". In the process of gathering the item, they destroyed a civilization. We will watch the preview and have an in-class discussion on the moral issues present in this situation.

3. We will watch the first part of the documentary about the fall of the Aztecs:

4. Make a copy of this presentation then open this website and track Mr. Sanders as he explains the activity Read through the first two sections describing Cortez' conquest of the Aztecs and create the first two of your presentation.  You should have one detailed slide for each of of the sections.  If you're having trouble you can look here at my example from section one.

Section Two
Section Three 

5. Embed the presentation on your portfolio.  Even though it isn't complete, it will update automatically as you build on it the rest of the week.   You will earn participation credit for the day by having your presentation correctly embedded into your portfolio.  If you don't know to get the embed code of a presentation, click here to see a video reminding you how to find it.

IMPORTANT: Be sure to go back and complete any missing previous assignments from this past week. It is important to start quarter four off successfully!

Homework:  Study for tomorrow's quiz on the Aztec Empire.  Most of the quiz questions will come from last week homework readings.

Here are the links to those:

• The Valley of Mexico
• The Aztec Capital
• The Aztec Empire

Mr. Sanders' Pictures from London