Students will learn the ancient technique of flint knapping, creating their own tools while exploring the development of tools among hunter-gatherers.
What’s Covered
Students will discuss how societies formed based on primary needs, specialized roles, and the lack thereof in early cultures. To add excitement, students will be split into teams and race to start a fire using flint, just like survival experts, with guidance to ensure they succeed. This hands-on activity not only teaches an essential survival skill but also deepens their understanding of early human societies and innovation.
Educational Standards
Applicable Standards:
- SS 4.2: Students describe the social, political, cultural, and economic life and interactions among people of California from the pre-Columbian societies to the Spanish mission and Mexican rancho periods.
- 4.2.1: Discuss the major nations of California Indians, including their geographic distribution, economic activities, legends, and religious beliefs; and describe how they depended on, adapted to, and modified the physical environment by cultivation of land and use of sea resources.
- SS 5.1: Students describe the major pre-Columbian settlements, including the cliff dwellers and pueblo people of the desert Southwest, the American Indians of the Pacific Northwest, the nomadic nations of the Great Plains, and the woodland peoples east of the Mississippi River.
- 5.1.1: Describe how geography and climate influenced the way various nations lived and adjusted to the natural environment, including locations of villages, the distinct structures that they built, and how they obtained food, clothing, tools, and utensils.
- SS 6.1: Students describe what is known through archaeological studies of the early physical and cultural development of humankind from the Paleolithic era to the agricultural revolution.
- SS 7.11: Students analyze political and economic change in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries (the Age of Exploration, the Enlightenment, and the Age of Reason)
- 7.11.2: Discuss the exchanges of plants, animals, technology, culture, and ideas among Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the major economic and social effects on each continent.