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Ancient Maya Mini-Q
The Maya:
What Was Their Most
Remarkable Achievement?
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Overview: The Maya flourished over a thousand years ago in the rainforests of Mesoamerica. Their intellectual and technical mastery in many areas has intrigued and amazed those who have studied them. This Mini-Q asks you to examine the Mayan civilization and decide which of its accomplishments was the most impressive.
The Documents: Document A: The Mayan Trade Network (map)
Document B: Building Cities
Document C: The Mayan Number System
Document D: The Mayan Calendar
A Mini Document Based Question (Mini-Q) © 2013 The DBa Project
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Ancient Maya Mini-Q
Hook Exercise: What Makes an Achievement "Remarkable"? Directions: The word "remarkable" is fuzzy when it is used as a measuring stick. What do we mean when we say, "Willie made a remarkable catch in center field," or "That concert was the most remark able I've ever been to," or "It is pretty remarkable that Copernicus figured out that the earth orbits around the sun"? Indeed, what exactly is it that makes each of these accomplishments remarkable?
Task One: Below is a list of eight human achievements. Next to each are four criteria for judging remarkableness. Your job is to select those one or two criteria that best explain why each achievement is remarkable. Criteria: scale size
genius brilliance; cutting-edge thinking
effort = physical or mental
significance impact on a society or the world
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Achievement
Scale
Genius
Effort
Significance
Putting a man on the moon Painting the Mona Lisa Inventing the computer Discovering penicillin Defeating Nazi Germany in World War II Writing the plays of Shakespeare Setting a world record in the marathon Building the Great Walls of China
Task Two: Of the eight achievements listed above, which is the most remarkable? Be able to defend your answer in terms of the four listed criteria.
Ill> 2013 The DBQ Project
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Ancient Maya Mini-Q
Background Essay
The Maya: What Was Their Most Remarkable Achievement? History is rich with stories of great human Scholars still don't know why this happened; it achievement. Consider the Egyptians, who built may have been because of overpopulation, overthe pyramids; the Greeks, who invented and use of the land, disease, or warfare. Whatever practiced democracy; the Chinese, who conthe reason, jungle soon covered the thousands of ceived and constructed the Great Wall. In the Mayan buildings and farms left behind. A great Western Hemisphere, no early civilization was society appeared to go silent. When the Spanish more remarkable than the Maya. arrived 600 years later, they did make some effort to preserve the surviving Mayan languages in Mesoamerica is that part of modem-day Central America that includes southern Mexico, dictionaries, but did little else to save the ancient Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. This region culture. It is important to say that the people never has been the Mayan home for 3,000 years. Until 500 years ago, the Maya lived in isolation from did disappear. About five million Mayans still live in Mesoamerica, speaking more than two the rest of the world, practicing slash-and-burn agriculture and raising crops such as com, dozen dialects of the Mayan language and beans, and squash. They r-"'