Alabama Social Studies SS24.8.11b
The Standard
- SS24.8.11
- Explain the motivations for exploration by European nations.
Explain the economic, political, and religious factors that fostered exploration, including mercantilism.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students sort reasons for voyages into profit, rivalry, and spreading Christianity. They explain how colonies sent resources to Europe under trade rules meant to make the ruling country richer.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Given a voyage proposal, a student can identify a trade profit, a rival kingdom, and a goal to convert people. They can explain how a colony supplying raw goods and buying goods from its ruling country served mercantilism.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may treat every voyage as a search for gold and miss competition between kingdoms. They may think mercantilism meant free trade, rather than rules that favored the ruling country. Some confuse missionary work with settlers seeking religious freedom.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: A king funds a voyage to find silver, claim land before a rival, and send missionaries. Label each motive, then explain how controlling a silver-producing colony could serve mercantilism.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give groups an Atlantic map and paper sugar and gold tokens; have them move resources from colonies to Europe and explain who gains.
Ask students to write a three-line pitch to a king promising trade wealth, land before a rival, and missionary work.
Have pairs sort cards reading 'find gold,' 'beat a rival,' 'send missionaries,' and 'restrict colonial trade' by motive, then explain the trade card.
Bring an imported chocolate bar, read its country-of-origin label, and compare its sale with a colony forced to trade only with its ruling country.
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Printable SS24.8.11b Worksheet
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Related Standards
- SS24.8.11
Explain the motivations for exploration by European nations.
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- SS24.8.11a
Summarize how expanding knowledge of geographical features and the development of navigational technology contributed to global exploration by Europeans.
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