7th Grade: Age of Discovery: Home

Ibn Battuta, a fourteenth-century Moroccan adventurer and religious scholar, was one of the most ambitious travelers of the Silk Road. Scholars estimate his lifelong journeys covered no fewer than 75,000 miles. His geographical records helped fill in the pieces of a mysterious world, a world in which people of different regions knew little or nothing about what lay over the horizon.

In 1325, a young Muslim man named Ibn Battuta set out on a religious pilgrimage to Mecca. This volume details the cultures Battuta experienced: the people he met, the foods he ate, the dangers he faced, plus his viewpoints on family, religion, and slavery. Learn how the legacy of this medieval traveler still resonates today.

Trekking from Africa to the Middle East and Asia, Ibn Battuta was one of the most well-traveled explorers of all time. Engaging headlines, historic images, and fact boxes take readers through his amazing travels in a unique tabloid style.

In size and sophistication, the most impressive empire in the Americas was the Incas. Established in Peru in the twelfth century, the Incan empire united millions of people and dozens of distinct cultures under a single governing system. The Incas lacked what many assume are essential to empire-building: writing, the wheel, a favorable climate. Still, the Incas overcame these challenges with incredible science, technology, engineering, and math or STEM innovations. These included terrace agriculture, elaborate road systems, earthquake-proof buildings, a planned economy without money, and an elaborate mathematics communicated with textiles. Incan accomplishments show that technological developments take many unexpected forms.

Looks at how the Inca Empire changed through time and gives fascinating insights into many different aspects of Inca life through its geography. Read about how the mountainous Inca geography led to their development of terrace farming, how the Incas worshipped the mountain peaks as gods and how the size of their Empire meant they built thousands of miles of roads and bridges to connect their people.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed across the ocean and discovered America. Right? WRONG! Columbus never actually set foot in what is now the United States. His voyages took him to islands in the Caribbean and along the coast of South America.
The truth is, when Columbus first arrived, Indigenous peoples, including the Taino, had been living there for thousands of years, raising their families, running their societies, and trading with their neighbors. He didn’t “discover” the lands at all! And his name? Not even really Christopher Columbus! Cowritten by a Taino scholar.

The colonization of the New World led to major changes for both European colonists and the native peoples who already lived there. Using an inquiry-based approach, primary sources, and quick-reference infographics, readers will learn all about the historic changes that took place in the land and various people's lives at the beginning of Colonial America.

How can we know what the journey was like for Columbus, his shipmates, and the Taino people he met in the Caribbean? We can study maps and tools Columbus used, excerpts from his journal, and carvings and jewelry created by the Taino. Explore primary sources from his time to learn more about his famous journey.