Melty, gooey cheese with sweet tomato sauce on a soft warm crust. Can you even imagine your life without pizza?! If European exploration never happened you would have never felt this amazing burst of flavour touch your tounge.

This past month I have been learning all about European exploration, and the cause and consequence of it. 

My Exploration Production

For this project, I was assigned with creating a story about European exploration and the cause and consequence of it, making illustrations to go with it, and then putting them together on an app called AR Makr all following the driving question, How can we use storytelling to investigate what sparked global exploration and understand its impact?

My Answer to the Driving Question

Almost all knowledge that has been passed around has once been from someone’s word of mouth, we learn lessons from stories and people. I fully understand what sparked global exploration and its impact, therefore communicating it through storytelling is an easy and effective method. 

What Lead me to my Conclusion

Before writing my story and creating my video, I needed to learn about exploration and the causes and consequences of it, these are some things that really helped me develop an understanding.

Cause and Consequence Padlets

We used a website called Padlet to brainstorm all the different cause and consequences of exploration, we were asked the questions: 

Why did Europeans explore? Why were they able to get to the Americas? Why would more Europeans choose to go to the Americas? What were the results of Europeans coming to the Americas? Consider different perspectives. Consequences can be good and bad.

Making the Padlets really helped me gain a better understanding because it forced me to really think about the questions, and then spill everything in my brain out onto an organized board. I could then go back and read my brainstorm for inspiration. 

 

Web of Cause and Consequence 

The web of cause and consequence was another thing that helped me answer the driving question. We had to make a web about the Europeans arriving in the americas, and list the underlying factors, human agency, immediate consequences, and long term consequences of it. This was a really helpful activity because after this I really got what I need to get in order to make my story. 

Using AR Makr

Figuring out AR Makr was probably the most difficult and frustrating part of the project because it is such a hard app to use. This app allows you to put drawings and images into real life, however, it is super glitchy, buggy and impossible. We first got introduced to this app when we were asked to create a practice story about a pirate or explorer and then make a video using the app. This was a very hard experience because it took me way longer than I thought it should and it got me very frustrating, however, creating this story helped me gain more skills with AR Makr and made it 100 times easier when it was time to make my final draft. Watch my first draft:

 

What I Learned 

Through this project I learned new tech skills, critical thinking, and a lot about European exploration and the causes and consequences of it. I learned new tech skills while using AR Makr. I used critical thinking when I had to solve problems and learn the app. Also,  I learned so much about exploration, why it happened, and what it lead to.