All it took was some topsoil, toothpicks, and carboard for students in Nathan Mills’ Global History and Geography 1 class to bring a piece of 13th century Mexico to Windsor.
“We are in the pre-American unit. We’ve been talking about how the Incas and the Aztecs adapted to become advanced societies. So, we had them build an example of how these societies adapted,” said Mr. Mills.
Students needed to create chinampas, or floating gardens, the Aztecs built as artificial islands on a freshwater lake to grow crops. Students had bins for sand and water and used basic classroom supplies: straws, cups, strips of cardboard, toothpicks. That’s all they had to create a chinampa with the highest crop yield.
“The kids really got into it. They really made some awesome stuff. They only had 10-15 minutes to build in groups of four or five. We did a gallery walk in which each head engineer walked us through their plan and why it would create the most stable and successful society," said Mr. Mills.
Students put topsoil on top of cardboard and see which design held the most beans. The beans represented the crop yield.
“It was a challenge to keep it stable and keep an open mind to things we can use to build it,” said student Madison Strawn.
“Once that cardboard gets wet, it sinks. So, they had to build a strong structure,” said Mr. Mills.
“It was interesting to see how other people before us used their resources to live. I think having a limited number of resources and types of things we could use was the toughest part,” said student Leigha Bloom.
The scarcity of resources and technology proved to be the toughest part of the challenge, and biggest lesson from it.
“Aztecs didn’t have animal power, they only had human power. If students say, ‘This cup represents a stone,’ I’d say, ‘OK how are you going to move it?’ The kids were amazed with what the Aztecs were able to do with primitive technology.,” said Mr. Mills.
“I’ve always had an appreciation of how people were able to live back then, without all the machinery. But this has definitely bumped up that appreciation. We can look at buildings and say, ‘Wow, how many machines built that.’ With these older buildings, I say ‘How long and how many people did it take to build that?’” said student Tristan Stochel.