Alabama Social Studies SS24.6.2b
The Standard
- SS24.6.2
- Compare and contrast the reasons for British, French, and Spanish colonization in North America as well as why individuals migrated to the colonies, including mercantilism, religious persecution, poverty, oppression, and new opportunities.
Trace the routes of key European expeditions in North America and describe their effects on colonization in the New World.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students draw European explorers’ routes on a map and name the places they reached. They explain how the voyages led to later land claims, trade, and settlement, and affected Native peoples.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can trace Cabot to Newfoundland, Cartier to the St. Lawrence River, and Hudson up the Hudson River. They can link those routes to later English, French, and Dutch activity without claiming the explorers founded colonies when they arrived.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may mix up Hudson’s 1609 river voyage with his later voyage to Hudson Bay. They may also describe land as empty before Europeans arrived or assume exploration led to immediate settlement.
How to Assess It
- Give students a blank map. Ask them to trace Cartier’s route to the St. Lawrence River and write one sentence about how the route helped later French trade or settlement.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Use yarn on a wall map to trace Cabot to Newfoundland, Cartier to the St. Lawrence, and Hudson up the Hudson River.
Show maps of Hudson’s 1609 voyage and later Dutch trading posts, then ask, “Why did traders choose sites along this river?”
Give pairs explorer, destination, and country cards to match, then have them check each match against a map.
Locate Albany on a current map, then find nearby Fort Orange on a historical map and discuss why Dutch traders built there.
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Printable SS24.6.2b Worksheet
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Related Standards
- SS24.8.12
Trace the cultural, economic, and political effects of European colonization on the populations of Africa, the Americas, and Europe.
- SS24.6.3
Describe the effects of European expeditions and colonization on the economic, geographic, and social conditions of Indigenous peoples during the fifteenth thro...
- SS24.3.9
Explain reasons for European expeditions and the establishment of early settlements and colonies in North America during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries...
- SS24.3.9a
Trace and compare routes of early explorers of North and South America.
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