Chapter 2: Protestant Rebellions

Activities for this chapter

• Many countries have relatively stable names and borders (Spain, Spanish), but the Netherlands is very difficult to pin down.  We will try to untangle the following terms: Low Countries, Netherlands (which means low countries), the Kingdom of the Netherlands (of which the country of the Netherlands is a constituent country along with the Caribbean countries of Aruba, Curacao, and Sint Maarten), Belgium (which also means low countries), Holland (a region of the Netherlands but which is often used as pars pro toto for the Netherlands), Flanders and Flemish (the Dutch speaking region of Belgium sometimes used as pars pro toto for the Low Countries), Dutch (refers to the language and the people of the Netherlands), and Deutschland and Deutsch (which is how Germans refer to their country and language), Benelux (refers to Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg).  To top it all off, for Spanish speakers there is further confusion because the word "flamenco" can refer to "flemish," the dance and music of Spanish gypsies, and to "flamingo" the bird.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_Low_Countries

• briefly discuss sea level, draining water from wetlands, Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287 BC -c. 212 BC) who said "Eureka!" and watch video on windmills in the Netherlands:

• watch video on Dutch art:

• listen to period music while working on the activities, maybe by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck 

• one group makes a topographic map of the Netherland--clay or salt dough: http://www.ecomare.nl/en/encyclopedia/man-and-the-environment/water-management/coastal-protection/flood-disasters/, http://kartwheels.org/2014/05/05/make-cool-salt-dough-maps/

• one group makes a model of an Archimedes screw, maybe with a wind turbine attached: http://kartwheels.org/2015/04/28/archimedes-screw-science-project/

• another group makes this one out of paper: http://www.robives.com/blog/archimedes

• another group makes an Archimedes screw using water tubing: http://www.primaryscience.ie/media/pdfs/col/engineers_ireland_design_and_make_a_water_pump.pdf

Links for this chapter

• flood control in the Netherlands:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_control_in_the_Netherlands

http://www.iamexpat.nl/expat-page/the-netherlands/the-dutch-and-water-in-the-netherlands

http://www.let.rug.nl/polders/boekje/types.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windpump 

http://chain.eu/?m3=32852

•  tulip mania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

What we did

We played a game show with the discussion questions--Spain versus the Netherlands, each team member had a flag for their country, Spain won!  We drank Dutch hot chocolate and ate waffle cookies.  And we made a topographic map of the Low Countries showing the sea level higher than some of the dry land.

We worked on three different Archimedean screws, this is the paper model:

And this is the plastic bottle model:

And the plastic tubing model:

And some of our show-and-tells--a beautifully intricate aristocratic hairstyle:

And a self-portrait in the style of Rembrandt, the dark background really makes the colors pop out!

Another student shared images of Incan jewelry and a video of Incan ruins shot from a drone, and another discussed her plans to make an earth oven.

Finally, here is a picture of some library books that I needed to return but that I wanted to remember for future projects: