Planned Cities on the Indus • Describe Indus Valley Cities and Culture
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wh10te-010203-0044-0049 8/2/03 11:07 AM Page 44 LESSON PLAN 3 OBJECTIVES Camel rider at Giza Pyramids Chinese Han Dynasty tile painting • Describe the impact of geography on in Egypt the Indus Valley culture. Planned Cities on the Indus • Describe Indus Valley cities and culture. • List theories about the decline of the Indus Valley civilization. MAIN IDEA WHY IT MATTERS NOW TERMS & NAMES INTERACTION WITH The culture of India today has • subcontinent • Harappan FOCUS & MOTIVATE ENVIRONMENT The first Indian its roots in the civilization of the • monsoon civilization civilization built well-planned early Indus cities. Point to the chalkboard. Ask what some- cities on the banks of the one can learn about our culture from this Indus River. artifact. Explain that archaeologists have The great civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt rose little more than this from the Indus SETTING THE STAGE and fell. They left behind much physical evidence about their ways of life. This Civilization. (Possible Answers: use tools, is the case in what today is the area known as Pakistan and part of India where have schools, people can write) another civilization arose about 2500 B.C. However, historians know less about its origins and the reasons for its eventual decline than they do about the origins INSTRUCT and decline of Mesopotamia and Egypt, because the language of the culture has not been translated. The Geography of the Indian TAKING NOTES The Geography of the Indian Subcontinent Subcontinent Drawing Conclusions Use the graphic organizer Geographers often refer to the landmass that includes India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh as the Indian . A wall of the highest mountains in the Critical Thinking to draw conclusions about subcontinent Indus Valley civilizations. world—the Hindu Kush, Karakorum, and Himalayan ranges—separates this • What made the Indus Valley a good region from the rest of the Asian continent. place for a civilization? (Mountains and Indus Valley Rivers, Mountains, and Plains The world’s tallest mountains to the north and Cities fact deserts protected the people; rivers a large desert to the east helped protect the Indus Valley from invasion. The provided water and fertile soil.) Language fact mountains guard an enormous flat and fertile plain formed by two rivers—the • Was the geography of Mesopotamia or Trade fact Indus and the Ganges (GAN•jeez). Each river is an important link from the inte- Egypt more like that of the Indus rior of the subcontinent to the sea. The Indus River flows southwest from the Valley? Explain. (Mesopotamia; the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea. Much of the lower Indus Valley is occupied by the floods were unpredictable.) Thar Desert. Farming is possible only in the areas directly watered by the Indus. The Ganges drops down from the Himalayas and flows eastward across northern In-Depth Resources: Unit 1 India. It joins the Brahmaputra River as it flows to the Bay of Bengal. • Guided Reading, p. 23 (also in Spanish) The Indus and Ganges and the lands they water make up a large area that stretches 1,700 miles across northern India and is called the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Like the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Nile, these rivers carry not only water for TEST-TAKING RESOURCES irrigation, but also silt, which produces rich land for agriculture. Test Generator CD-ROM Below the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the southern part of the subcontinent is a peninsula that thrusts south into the Indian Ocean. The center of the peninsula is Strategies for Test Preparation a high plateau cut by twisting rivers. This region is called the Deccan (DEK•uhn) Test Practice Transparencies, TT6 Plateau. The plateau is framed by low mountain ranges called the Eastern and Western Ghats. These mountains keep moist air from reaching the plateau, mak- Online Test Practice ing it a dry region. A narrow border of lush, tropical land lies along the coasts of southern India. 44 Chapter 2 SECTION 3 PROGRAM RESOURCES ALL STUDENTS STRUGGLING READERS In-Depth Resources: Unit 1 In-Depth Resources: Unit 1 eEdition CD-ROM • Guided Reading, p. 23 • Guided Reading, p. 23 • Science and Technology: Early Water Engineering, • Building Vocabulary, p. 25 Power Presentations CD-ROM p. 39 • Reteaching Activity, p. 42 Electronic Library of Primary Sources Formal Assessment Reading Study Guide, p. 17 • from “Indus Culture” • Section Quiz, p. 22 Reading Study Guide Audio CD classzone.com ENGLISH LEARNERS GIFTED AND TALENTED STUDENTS In-Depth Resources in Spanish In-Depth Resources: Unit 1 • Guided Reading, p. 19 • Science and Technology: Early Water Engineering, Reading Study Guide (Spanish), p. 17 p. 39 Reading Study Guide Audio CD (Spanish) Electronic Library of Primary Sources 44 Chapter 2 • from “Indus Culture” wh10te-010203-0044-0049 8/2/03 11:07 AM Page 45 Monsoon Winter Ancient India, 2500–1500 B.C. 40°N CHAPTER 2 • Section 3 H KUS Dry monsoon winds DU IN KARAKOR (October to May) H AM M Wet monsoon winds T S (June to September) KHYBER . PASS r Indus Valley civilization e iv History from Visuals R BOLAN PASS Harappa s u Interpreting the Map d H In Kalibangan IN I D O M Have students study the topography of -G Mohenjo- A A N G L Daro E A ancient India. What was the geography T Y IC A THAR PL S G AI R. of the Indus Valley like? (mountains, DESERT a n N aputra g e s R rahm i ver B rivers, plains) Extension Have pairs of students go Monsoon Summer INDIA through the first half of the section titled G “The Geography of the Indian Arabian o da 20°N Sea vari Subcontinent.” Partners should locate on Rive DECCAN r PLATEAU S 0 200 Miles the map the different areas mentioned in K T rishn ver A a Ri H G the text. W 0 400 Kilometers E N S R T Bay of E E R T S N Bengal SKILLBUILDER Answers A G E H 1. Human-Environment Interaction the A T S 80°E Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and Himalaya 100°E mountains and the Thar Desert 2. Movement They blow across Asia and over the Himalayas before reaching the GEOGRAPHY SKILLBUILDER: Interpreting Maps Indian subcontinent. 1. Human-Environment Interaction What landforms presented natural barriers around the Indus Valley? 2. Movement Why do the winter monsoon winds carry so little moisture? Monsoons Seasonal winds called monsoons dominate India’s climate. From October to February, winter monsoons from the northeast blow dry air westward across the country. Then, from the middle of June through October, the winds shift. These monsoons blow eastward from the southwest, carrying moisture from the ocean in great rain clouds. The powerful storms bring so much moisture that flood- ing often happens. When the summer monsoons fail to develop, drought often A. Answer the wet causes crop disasters. and dry cycles of the monsoons Environmental Challenges The civilization that emerged along the Indus River faced many of the same challenges as the ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations. Identifying Problems • Yearly floods spread deposits of rich soil over a wide area. However, the What environ- floods along the Indus were unpredictable. mental challenge • The rivers sometimes changed course. did the farmers of • The cycle of wet and dry seasons brought by the monsoon winds was the Indus Valley face that the unpredictable. If there was too little rain, plants withered in the fields and Sumerians and people went hungry. If there was too much rain, floods swept away whole Egyptians did not? villages. Early River Valley Civilizations 45 DIFFERENTIATING INSTRUCTION: ENGLISH LEARNERS Understanding Specialized Vocabulary Class Time 45 minutes Word Meaning Example Task Identifying and using key vocabulary subcontinent A large area of land that is India because it is cut Purpose To develop skill in using specialized vocabulary words part of a continent but is off from Asia by Instructions Have students work in pairs or small groups to gain under- also separated from the mountains standing of the specialized vocabulary used in this section to describe the continent geography of the Indus-Ganges Plain. Have students make lists of the monsoon A wind that changes direction. Winds that bring rain words they need to know; then have them make a chart listing the word, Can also mean a heavy rain. or dry air the meaning, and an example to help make the meaning clear. Some of the words that might need explanation are the following: plateau Land that is high and flat Parts of the south- subcontinent, monsoon, plateau, peninsula, plain. west in the United States Teacher’s Edition 45 CHAPTER 2 • Section 3 Civilization Emerges on the Indus Historians know less about the civilization in the Indus Valley than about those to the west. They have not yet deciphered the Indus system of writing. Evidence comes largely from archaeological digs, although many sites remain unexplored, Civilization Emerges on and floods probably washed away others long ago. At its height, however, the civ- the Indus ilization of the Indus Valley influenced an area much larger than did either Mesopotamia or Egypt. No one is sure how human settlement began in the Indian sub- Critical Thinking Earliest Arrivals continent. Perhaps people who arrived by sea from Africa settled the south. • What do the planned cities of the Indus Northern migrants may have made their way through the Khyber Pass in the Hindu Valley people tell us about their cul- Kush mountains. Archaeologists have found evidence in the highlands of agricul- ture? (high level of cooperation, strong ture and domesticated sheep and goats dating to about 7000 B.C. By about central government) 3200 B.C., people were farming in villages along the Indus River.