Whole Earth Curriculum WEC

Lesson 03 — Continuity & Change: The Growth of Cities

Learners extend their continuity-and-change skill to a second global process — the growth of cities — by placing five cities (Mohenjo-daro, Cahokia, Great Zimbabwe, Angkor, Timbuktu) on a timeline and naming what stayed the same and what changed across regions and centuries.

D08 P4: Contextual & Ecological Awareness D08.S1 55 minutes Draft

Objectives

Essential question

How did the growth of cities change and stay the same across regions and centuries?

cityurbanizationgrid planmoundirrigationdecline

Materials

Standard materials

Low-tech / no-cost

Enriched / lab & device

Works in different contexts

Five city cards arranged across time — Mohenjo-daro, Cahokia, Great Zimbabwe, Angkor, and Timbuktu — with a note on what cities kept in common and what changed
Five city cards arranged across time — Mohenjo-daro, Cahokia, Great Zimbabwe, Angkor, and Timbuktu — with a note on what cities kept in common and what changed

Lesson 3 — Continuity & Change: The Growth of Cities

Summary

Learners extend their continuity-and-change skill to a second global process — the growth of cities — by placing five cities on a timeline and naming what stayed the same and what changed. The cities are Mohenjo-daro (Indus Valley), Cahokia (Mississippi), Great Zimbabwe (Shona), Angkor (Khmer), and Timbuktu (Mali).

Objectives

  • Analyze continuity and change in the growth of cities across several regions and centuries, naming what stayed the same and what changed. (D08.S1.09.01)

Connection

Every city you have ever seen — and every town you have lived in — began somewhere: usually at a river crossing, a port, a trade route, or a place where people could gather. Cities are one of the oldest human inventions, and they are still being invented today. Some things about them have stayed the same for thousands of years; other things change with every century. Today we trace that double story across the world.

Materials

  • City cards
  • Continuity-and-change sheet

Preparation

  • Copy the city cards and the sheet.
  • Retrieval: from Lesson 2, recall the two-column method (stayed the same / changed). Today we apply it to cities.

Facilitator note

This lesson is written to the learner (“you”). The idea to land: cities are a second global process to analyze for continuity and change. What stayed the same: cities grew at rivers, ports, and trade routes, and people gathered in them to trade, pray, govern, and learn. What changed: each city found its own form — stone, earth, or water — and each rose and fell in its own time. The five cities, each a real, documented case: (1) Mohenjo-daro — an Indus Valley city of ~2600–1900 BCE with grid streets and an elaborate drainage system (S-132); (2) Cahokia — a Mississippian city near the Mississippi River, ~1050–1350 CE, built around earth mounds (S-472); (3) Great Zimbabwe — a Shona stone city of the 11th–15th centuries CE, center of a gold-trading kingdom linked to the Indian Ocean coast (S-199); (4) Angkor — a Khmer city of the 9th–15th centuries CE whose vast water system of reservoirs and canals managed the monsoons (S-471); (5) Timbuktu — a Saharan trade city that became a center of manuscript learning in the 15th–16th centuries (S-268). Note the global range on purpose: city-building is a shared human achievement, not one region’s. This is a skill lesson, so reinforce the worked-example–guided-practice–independent pattern from Lesson 2 (Kirschner, Sweller & Clark 2006, S-011). The global lens: cities arose independently on many continents. The environment lens: cities grew where land and water met — rivers, coasts, oases. The technology lens: city-building required engineering — drains, mounds, stone walls, reservoirs. The egalitarian lens: ask who lived in the fine center of a city and who lived at its edges. Keep decline honest but multi-causal — cities rarely “collapse” from one cause (see Lesson 6).

Procedure

  1. Recall (5 min). From Lesson 2: what are the two columns of a continuity-and-change analysis? Today we use them on a new process: cities.
  2. Meet five cities (12 min). Read the five city cards. For each, note where it stood and one thing it is remembered for: Mohenjo-daro’s drains, Cahokia’s mounds, Great Zimbabwe’s stone walls, Angkor’s reservoirs, Timbuktu’s books.
  3. Build a timeline (8 min). Place the five cities in order on a long line. What does the order tell you? (City-building is ancient and ongoing — no single region owns it.)
  4. Two columns (15 min). Fill the sheet. Stayed the same: cities grew at rivers, ports, and trade routes; people gathered to trade, pray, govern, learn. Changed: each city’s form — stone, earth, or water — and each city’s rise and fall.
  5. Compare (8 min). How is the story of cities like the story of trade from Lesson 2, and how is it different?
  6. Close (5 min). Cities are a thread that runs through all of human history. Next: we turn to knowledge — how it is lost and how it is revived.

Differentiation

  • Support: Give a pre-drawn timeline with the five cities placed, and ask learners to add one “stayed” and one “changed” fact to each.
  • Extension: Choose a sixth city from your own region or another continent and add it to the timeline with a source for its dates.

Assessment

  • Formative (observation): Can the learner place the five cities in time and name at least one continuity and one change with evidence?
  • Portfolio artifact: The completed timeline and sheet, kept in the portfolio.

Home connection

Ask at home: why did people first settle where your town or city is? What has changed about it, and what has stayed the same?

Resources