Download UNIT 6 GUIDE

TEACHER MATERIALS
UNIT 6 GUIDE
Table of Contents
Learning Outcomes
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Key Concepts
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Misconceptions and Teaching Challenges
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Vocabulary3
Lesson and Content Overview
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TEACHER MATERIALS
Unit 6—Early Humans
Unit 6 Driving Question: What makes humans different from other species?
Learning Outcomes
1. Describe human evolution, using evidence and connection to other species of mammals.
2. Explain whether or not symbolic language makes humans different.
3. Describe how early humans lived.
4. Explain collective learning.
5. Understand what scholars from multiple disciplines know about a topic and the questions they can ask to
gain an understanding of the topic from an integrated perspective.
Key Concepts
How did our early ancestors evolve? Students tackle this topic in the first lesson and learn about human evolution.
The concentration here will be on how the genus Homo evolved from the order of primates into modern humans,
or Homo sapiens. The next lesson reveals how the story of human evolution has many contributors, including
archaeologists, anthropologists, and primatologists. Scientists and scholars from across a multitude of disciplines
have worked on the topic of human evolution for many years to piece together a history of our species using
verifiable evidence, such as fossil remains. One of this unit’s main focal points is the importance of collective
learning and symbolic language. It is the combination of these two human feats that separates us from other
species in the animal kingdom; it is what makes us different.
Human Evolution
All modern humans belong to a single species known as Homo sapiens. We’re also classified in the order of
primates, the class of mammals, and the kingdom of animals. Biologists and paleontologists have worked together
for years to correctly classify thousands of species. They’ve also been able to partly reconstruct our human
ancestry by comparing fossils and identifying genetic relationships between living species by comparing their DNA.
Genetic comparisons between chimpanzees and Homo sapiens suggest that we shared a common ancestor about
7 million years ago. However, unlike chimps, humans are hominines—apes that walk upright on two legs. Humans
are the only surviving hominines in the world today, but in the past, there were others in this family including
members of the genus Australopithecus, as well as other members of the genus Homo, including the species Homo
habilis and Homo erectus.
Collective Learning and Symbolic Language
While early primates and hominines were like us in many ways, we have no evidence to suggest that their
behaviors or the technologies they used changed significantly during their time on Earth. Like most animal species,
they seem to have been limited in the number of ways they used their environment to produce the energy and
resources needed to survive. Our species is different because our ancestors kept developing new ways of using
the resources available in their environment. We are the only species that is able to do this without changing
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TEACHER MATERIALS
genetically, which means that we can adapt to changing conditions much faster than other species. The key to
this is our use of symbolic language to share information and pass it on to future generations. It is our ability to
collectively learn that allows Homo sapiens to migrate and flourish in all corners of the Earth. Many species of
mammals and birds share information through mating calls and warning signals, but their language is not efficient
enough to allow collective memories to accumulate information over long periods of time. Human language enables
us to exchange information so precisely and rapidly that it accumulates in the member of entire groups, gradually
increasing the store of knowledge available to each community.
How Did Early Humans Live?
In order to reconstruct how early humans lived an interdisciplinary approach is required. Archaeologists use the
remains of individuals (including their skulls and parts of their skeletons) as well as the remains of things they ate,
used, and made (such as stone tools). Anthropologists study modern human societies that are likely to be similar
to societies of the Paleolithic era in order to learn about their technologies, social organization, and ideas about the
world. Primatologists also gather helpful evidence: they study our close relatives, such as chimpanzees, to see what
can be inferred about the earliest human societies. No single source of evidence is perfect, but together, the work
of these scholars gives us an idea about the basic patterns of life in the Paleolithic era.
Misconceptions and Teaching Challenges
The Human-Chimp Connection
A common student misconception is that humans descended directly from chimps. They didn’t. While humans
and chimps would most certainly be classified as genetic cousins as we share 98% of the same DNA structures
and a common ancestor, we did not evolve from them. Humans and chimps separated on the evolutionary tree
approximately 7 million years ago. The evolution of both chimps and humans took place in Africa, however, it was
only members of the genus Homo who began migrating out of Africa.
Vocabulary
anthropology — The scientific study of human beings and human culture, including beliefs, customs, and
archaeological records.
archaeology — The scientific study of human activity in the past, primarily by finding and examining objects
that humans created or interacted with.
australopithecines — An early group of hominine species with brains similar in size to those of chimpanzees;
they flourished in Africa between 4 and 1 million years ago.
bipedalism — The ability to walk on two rear limbs (legs).
collective learning — The ability to share, preserve, and build upon ideas over time.
culture — The customs, values, beliefs, and general patterns of behavior of a particular group of people.
foraging — Relying on wild (uncultivated) plants and animals for sustenance; hunting and gathering. Foraging
was the dominant way of life during the Paleolithic era.
fossils — The preserved remains of organisms from the distant past. Fossils are usually mineralized or
hardened remains of the organisms themselves, but can also include traces of an organism’s behavior (for
example, footprints) that have been preserved.
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genealogy — The study of lineage and family history.
genetics — The scientific study of how traits are inherited.
hominines — All bipedal species in the human line since it diverged from the common ancestor with
chimpanzees; first appeared 8 to 5 million years ago. The only survivors of this line are Homo sapiens, or
modern humans.
Homo ergaster or Homo erectus — A hominine species that originated in Africa around two million years ago
and migrated into Eurasia, reaching as far as China and Java. Almost as tall as modern humans, their brains
were larger than those of Homo habilis, and they may have been able to control fire. Homo erectus and Homo
ergaster may have been the same species.
Homo habilis — A hominine relative of human beings that appeared in Africa between 2 and 3 million years
ago, and was able to make simple tools.
Homo sapiens — The scientific name for our species, which is thought to have evolved in Africa between
200,000 and 300,000 years ago.
marsupials — A group of mammals whose young are born in an undeveloped state, and then develop and
nurse in a maternal pouch.
migration — Movement of animals from one place to another, often in search of more abundant resources.
Neanderthal — A species of hominine very closely related to our own species, Homo sapiens, that went
extinct roughly 35,000 to 30,000 years ago. Genetic research shows that the DNA of people with Eurasian
ancestry is partly (a few percent) Neanderthal. Though Neanderthals have sometimes been portrayed as
brutish or stupid, they were probably very similar to Homo sapiens, and some experts even consider them part
of our species.
nomadic — Describes a way of life in which people move from place to place rather than settling in a single
location; movements are often dictated by climate and availability of food sources.
Paleolithic era — A long, early era of human history that featured the creation and use of many different types
of stone tools; literally means “Old Stone Age.”
paleontology — The study of prehistoric life on Earth using the fossil record.
primate — A member of the order of mammals appearing between 60 million and 70 million years ago that
is characterized by a relatively large brain, hands with multiple movable fingers and nails instead of claws, and
eyes positioned on the front of the skull to enable stereoscopic vision.
symbiosis — An interdependent relationship between two different species that live in close contact with one
another; may be beneficial to both species, or beneficial to one but neutral or harmful to the other.
symbolic language —A powerful form of communication; much more powerful than communication by
other animals because it can convey much more information, much more precisely. Symbolic language makes
collective learning possible because it allows humans to share huge amounts of accumulated information
generation to generation.
taxonomy — The science of classifying different forms of life based upon distinguishing characteristics.
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TEACHER MATERIALS
Lesson and Content Overview
Lesson name
Lesson description
Content
Activity
6.0—How Our Ancestors
Evolved
We might share a lot with
our primate cousins, but
our bigger brains, our ability
to walk upright, and other
physical “improvements” are all
adaptations that make humans
unique.
• Watch: Threshold 6 –
Humans and Collective
Learning
• Opening: Early Ancestors
We’re obsessed with
understanding the roots of
who we are as a species.
Anthropologists, archaeologists,
and primatologists are the most
obsessed, as they work to paint
a picture of early human life.
• Watch: Intro to Anthropology
• Opening: DQ Notebook
• Watch: Intro to Archaeology
• Activity: What Do You Know?
What Do You Ask?
6.1—Ways of Knowing: Early
Humans
6.2—Collective Learning
• Read: “Lucy and the
Leakeys”
• Read: “Jane Goodall”
• Vocab Activity: Memorization
• Activity: Evolution Comic
• Closing: Change Over Time
Essay
• Activity: Historos Cave
• Closing: Little Big History
Kickoff
Our talent for preserving and
• Read: “Collective Learning”
sharing information, passing it
(Part 1)
from one generation to the next, • Watch: Common Man – H2
has made us the most powerful
• Watch: Early Evidence of
species on the planet.
Collective Learning
• Opening: Collective Learning
Snap Judgment
• Activity: Claim Testing –
Collective Learning
• Vocab Activity:
Comprehension/Application
• Closing: DQ Notebook
6.3—How Did the First
Humans Live?
Investigation: How does
language make humans
different?
Our Paleolithic ancestors
were foraging nomads who
eventually migrated across six
continents. These early humans
made tools, used fire, and
sustained themselves in diverse
environmental conditions.
• Watch: How Did the First
Humans Live?
• Activity: Hunter Gatherer
Menu
• Read: “Foraging”
• Activity: Human Migration
Patterns
• Watch: From Foraging to
Food Shopping
• Watch: Genealogy and
Human Ancestry
The investigation in this unit
• Communication among
focuses on how language is
bacteria and honeybees
used by humans and by other
• Bird calls and songs
animals. A variety of texts will
• Language development in
help students investigate if and
chimpanzees and in human
how human language makes us
children
different.
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• Activity: Little Big History –
Choosing Your Focus
• Closing: Investigation 6
• Venn diagram
• A four- to five-paragraph
essay that will be used as a
writing assessment.
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TEACHER MATERIALS
Lesson name
Lesson description
Content
Additional content
Additional content items,
including image galleries,
can be used to augment
lessons or customize
your own unit.
• Human Ancestors (gallery)
Activity
• What Makes Humans
Different? (gallery)
• Making Stone Tools (video)
• Collective Learning at Scale
(video)
• How Did the First Humans
Live? (gallery)
• How Did Our Ancestors
Evolve? (video)
• What Makes Humans
Different? (video)
• Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
(reading)
• Migrations and Technological
Creativity (video)
• Learning tips
• Random facts
• Related galleries, images,
websites, and videos
• Web links
Assessments
Actions
Unit 6 includes a required
Investigation Writing
assessment, the second of
three such assessments
in the course.
• Investigation Writing
The Unit Log is required for
every unit.
• Unit Log
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• Glossary Challenge
• Unit Quiz (optional)
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TEACHER MATERIALS
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