Essential Questions
How did geography affect early settlement in Egypt, Kush, and Canaan?
What did the pharaohs of Egypt accomplish, and how did they do it?
How did social classes affect daily life in ancient Egypt?
What major contributions did ancient Egypt make to history?
Egypt Links
Ancient Egypt has a rich material culture, as well as written sources. Historians know a lot about it because there's a lot left over to study. On the web, Egyptian history is also rife with commercialism, misinformation, pop culture myths, Hollywood interpretations, and persistent errors. Toss in a potent mix of agendas from three of the worlds major religions and you easily see where a student might have trouble recognizing good sources. Still, this problem is one of the things that makes studying Egypt such a fertile topic for developing historical literacy. "How do we know what we know?" is a great question to wrestle with when studying this important culture.
Here are a couple of good sites to point students in the right direction:
Typical Class Project: "Making" History
Updated versions of this project will be given out as the project approaches These handouts are only posted to give people an idea of what projects are like in this class. The project follows the typical pattern for all projects in Mr. Westerberg's social studies classes. Start with research, write to answer a research question, and make something using what you've learned, and wrap up by presenting to the class.