Explorer Poster Project

Students will work with a partner to research one of the many European explorers that visited North, Central, and South America. They will use the information they uncover through research to create an explorer poster, then share it with the class so everyone gets to hear about the various explorations.

Directions:

Research your assigned explorer from the Early European Explorers List. Record your information and sources on the Explorer Notes and Sources worksheets.

Create a poster that displays what you have learned. Use the project checklist to make sure you include all of the important information. Keep in mind that your finished product should be neat, interesting to look at, easy to understand, and informative.

Place the elements onto your poster in a way that is attractive to the viewer.

• Tip: Group information with pictures that support it.
• Tip: Make section headings larger than supporting detail information.
• Tip: Don't over-crowd your poster, nor leave too many large "blank" spaces.
• Tip: Have one graphic element that is larger than the others, and more central to the poster.

Here is a link to the project checklist!

A good place to begin your research is p. 72-119 (Chapters 3 & 4) in the textbook. Use your glossary to quickly find the page(s) that will be most helpful to you.

Here is a link to the poster rubric that will be used to score your finished product.

Research site links:

• Snaith Primary Social Studies Units (Vikings)
• History for Kids: Explorers
• Enchanted Learning: Zoom Explorers
• Specific Explorers links to a large number of explorers
• Student Recommended Sites for explorers
• HCO (History of Canada Online) for northern explorers
• Mr. Carlton's Renaissance Unit
• Macmillan/McGraw-Hill Social Studies Exploration Unit
• European Exploration and Colonization online chapter
• Exploration by Mr. Whalen's American history class
• Vikings discover America, in the words of ancient sagas
• Magellan's death through the journal of an eye-witness
• Columbus's discovery, in his own words
• OneKey (kid-safe search engine)
• Kaboose (kids' search engine)
• Wikipedia: Online encyclopedia written by its readers!

Fun site links:

• Enjoy a humorous look at Magellan's travels with this music video!