When Christopher Columbus and his men came to the Americas over 500 years ago, they brought horses, chickens, and wheat bread from Europe. The Native Americans had never seen any of those things before. The Europeans had never seen the potatoes, peanuts, tomatoes, cocoa, or corn grown by the Native Americans. But it did not take long for Europeans to start growing American foods, and for Native Americans to start growing foods that came from Europe. Native Americans also raised European horses and chickens.

This introduction of new plants and animals to Europe and America is called the Columbian Exchange. It's called Columbian because it started with Columbus, and exchange because people traded, or exchanged, things with each other. In this lesson, you will learn about the Columbian Exchange and how it changed life on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

To begin, print out the Columbian Exchange Worksheet (PDF). Use it to help you keep track of the plants and animals that were part of the Columbian Exchange. One example has been filled in for you.

Goals
Here are the big ideas you will learn about in this lesson:

• The Columbian Exchange of plants and animals changed the world.
• The Columbian Exchange had positive and negative effects on the world.

Strategies
You will be using many reading and writing strategies to complete this lesson. The key strategies that you will focus on are:

• Determining important information
• Making connections
• Categorizing basic facts and ideas
• Constructing summaries
• Making inferences

• import
• native

This video describes how Columbus and his men began the Columbian Exchange when they introduced the horse to the Americas. Other animals and foods were brought to the Americas, and American foods were taken to the rest of the world.

As you watch the video, think about how the animals that Columbus and his men brought to the Americas are such a big part of life in the Americas today. You may want to take notes on the worksheet as you watch.

Click "View" on the left to watch the video.

• List some of the plants and animals that Columbus and his men brought that are part of life in the Americas today.
• List some of the plants that were taken from the Americas to the rest of the world by Columbus.

The Columbian Exchange included many plants and animals. Corn, cocoa, and tomatoes went from the Americas to Europe, and later to Africa and Asia. Chickens, wheat, and cows went from Europe to the Americas. Throughout the world, the variety of food that people could grow and eat increased greatly.

This video describes how the European horse changed life in the Americas. Not only did it allow people to travel distances more quickly, but it also changed the ways they hunted and fought. As you watch, think about how it made hunting easier for the Indians of the North American plains.

Click "View" on the left to watch the video.

Not every part of the Columbian Exchange was positive. European people also brought diseases, like smallpox, to the Americas. The rats from European ships brought other diseases. Americans who caught these diseases died from them because they had no immunity—their bodies did not know how to fight off the germs. As many as 80 percent of the Native American population died from European diseases between 1492 and 1650.

This video shows another negative effect of the Columbian Exchange. Although the introduction of the potato to Europe improved the diet of its growing population, another import—a potato fungus—later caused many deaths.

Click "View" on the left to watch the video. Then, write two to four sentences describing how the potato affected (both helped and hurt) the Irish people.

The videos you have seen and the text you have read describe the Columbian Exchange, and the effects it had on both Europe and the Americas.

Now, show what you have learned so far about the Columbian Exchange by answering these three questions. Be sure to save all your answers before you go to the next screen.

In this lesson, you have learned about the Columbian Exchange, and how it brought new plants and animals to Europe and the Americas. Many of those plants and animals became very important to their new lands, and are not seen as imports at all today. Now you will read more about how that exchange began to turn the world into today’s connected “global village.”

Click "View" to open the "Going Global" document and read this passage. Then, click "View" to open the "Columbian Exchange Map" and see an image about the Columbian Exchange. Continue to take notes on your worksheet.

Which part of the reading surprised you the most? Write one to two sentences to explain your answer.

You will now check your understanding of the vocabulary words for this lesson by placing them in sentences. Click "View" on the left to begin the activity.

Before moving to the next screen, choose two words from the vocabulary list and write a new sentence for each word.

Vocabulary words: Columbian, continent, exchange, import, native

As the videos and the readings have shown, the Columbian Exchange meant that a number of plants and animals that were native to particular parts of the world traveled to and from the Americas. In this activity, you will put some of these plants and animals into four categories.

Click "View" on the left to begin the activity. Your teacher will review the answers with you.

Then, before moving on to the final assignment, you may want to watch this lesson's videos again or reread the passage.

The Exchange Begins

Video: 0m 56s

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The Effects of the Exchange

Video: 0m 54s

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The Problems of the Columbian Exchange

Video: 1m 23s

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Going Global

Document

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In this lesson, you have learned about the Columbian Exchange and its impact on the world. You will now write an essay that shares what you have learned and what you think about it.

Begin by reviewing your notes. Click "review my work" above and view or print out the screen that pops up.

Final Assignment Instructions

• Click The Columbian Exchange—Final Assignment (PDF).
• Choose one of the topics in the PDF and write an essay.
• Organize your response so that it includes at least three supporting details that you have learned from the reading passage, videos, and other materials in this lesson.
• Use at least three vocabulary words (or a form of the words) as part of your supporting details. For example, for the word jump, you could use jumps, jumped, or jumping.