🏴‍☠️ Arg Matey! The Causes and Consequences of European Exploration

Welcome! In this post I will be writing about the impact of European exploration. 

In this project we learned how to analyze cause and consequence. We also got to demonstrate our ability to effectively discuss, listen and speak in many ways including creating an Augmented Reality (AR) video, which was our final product for this project.

We started this project by watching the movie Captain Phillips, which is a movie about the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama, a cargo ship. The movie is a thrilling account of the actual hijacking which occurred off the coast of Somalia in 2009. The crew of Maersk Alabama was attacked by four armed Somali pirates. The pirates were overwhelmed by the crew and left the ship in a lifeboat but took Captain Phillips hostage. This resulted in the US Navy rescuing him. The movie was very violent and gory, I wouldn’t have chosen to watch it, but it was interesting nonetheless!

We then learned about cause and consequence. We used this web diagram to find the causes and consequences in the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama: 

For Milestone 1 we applied this knowledge to create a short story that demonstrated cause and consequence. The twist: we got to present it as an AR video that included at least one drawing of our own. We used an app called AR Makr to place our AR objects and record our videos. My story was about a tree that withstands lightning and saves a squirrel in the process. Here is my web of cause and consequence that I used to plan my story:

Then we listened to Mr. Hughes lecture about European exploration and the Columbian  exchange. I accumulated a bunch of notes, including multiple pirate jokes that were included in his presentation! Here are a few:

(click the question to reveal the answer.)

You can read my notes here. (Sorry about any incorrect grammar and spelling)

Then we used a more advanced web of cause and consequence to find the causes and consequences of Europeans “discovering” the Americas. (The discovery is in quotations because technically there were people in the Americas before the Europeans.)

Then we started on Milestone 3. In this milestone we chose an event from all of the knowledge that we gained about European exploration (also know as the Age of Exploration), and used the story spine to write a story to present as an AR video. We used this table to plan our story:  

I then took my story plan and turned it into a final script for Milestone 4. This is my final script:

Then we got to draw images for our AR video using the very basic tools in the app Keynote so that our images could be saved with a transparent background.  

I found this fun, but my perfectionism caused me to struggle to finish my drawings in time to film. If I were to go back and do it again, I would have spent a little less time making them “perfect.”

Then we imported all of our drawings into AR Makr and placed them in a large space so that we could walk around and through our drawings while we filmed and narrated. I found that my arms got rather tired from holding my iPad up long enough to place all the objects and film. I then edited my AR video with iMovie, including adding a voiceover for the narration. I think that my video gives a strong answer to our driving question: What was the impact of global exploration?

⬇️ Here is my final AR video! ⬇️

We celebrated the end of our project by eating White Spot Pirate Packs outside in the sun, yum! I had fun debating (okay, a fun argument) about who’s pirate ship was best with Makenna and Dana. (If you’re reading this Makenna, you win, yours was the best. Happy?)

I really enjoyed learning about the causes and consequences of European exploration, watching Captain Phillips, eating pirate packs and making an AR video! Thanks for reading! 👋