History Colorado

Resource Kit Overview

Ways of Knowing Part 1 - Tree Rings

A tapestry created by Emperor Qianlong to express his concern for people suffering famine and homelessness from floods in China.

How do we know about the past?

As you observe the pottery items in this slideshow, explore the evolving role of pottery in Chinese culture and global trade networks throughout the history of China. Use disciplinary lenses and refer to object information and sources in the Additional Materials to conduct research about the significance of each of these pottery items. 

Pottery in China

Explore the types of pottery in the slideshow below. What can the shape and certain features tell us about how they were used or why they were created? 

Ancestral Puebloan Pottery

In this activity, learn about five disciplinary lenses and how they can be applied to explore objects from the past. 

A tool: Using Disciplinary Lenses

Use this annotation activity to collect answer to questions from one of the five disciplinary lenses introduced in the last activity. You will choose just one object from the pottery slideshows to apply disciplinary lenses, and compare your findings with classmates who have selected an alternative lens. 

Applying Disciplinary Lenses

Dozens of languages emerged throughout Chinese history. Evaluate the use of language on objects from across Chinese history and examine the role writing can play across time and context.

Changing Language in China

Pueblo people have been making pottery in the Southwest United States for hundreds of years. We can learn a lot from the traditions and knowledge that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Ways of Knowing Part 2 - Ancestors

Explore some of the ways we can know about the past. Practice and compare the many disciplinary lenses we can use to learn about the past while exploring the form, function, continuity and change of objects from across history.


Additional Resource for Using Disciplinary Lenses: 

Additional Information about Colorado's Pueblo People:

Rocky Mountain PBS Colorado Experience: Living West, Water

Colorado Encyclopedia Article on Mesa Verde National Park 

 Ancestral Puebloans of the Four Corners Region

Field Museum

Exploring Ways of Knowing

World History

Social Studies

Overview

Evidence in the Unwritten 	

Learn about how scientists ask questions to examine artifacts to learn more about the past.   

Ask an Artifact	

Basketry formed an essential element of ancestral Pueblo culture in southwestern Colorado. Baskets continued to be used for a wide variety of purposes even after the introduction of pottery into the area. Baskets weigh much less and thus easier to transport than pottery vessels, and, unlike pottery, they didn’t break when dropped.  Watch these videos to learn about how Pueblo people today still make things from yucca using both traditional and modern methods.

Ways of Knowing From Ancestors, Yucca Example

Pueblo people have been making pottery in the Southwest United States for hundreds of years. We can learn a lot from the traditions and knowledge that has been passed down from generation to generation. Explore how similar forms, from different times and cultures, can function in the same way. Watch these video clips of potter Dolly Naranjo Neikrug to learn how natural materials are used for making pottery over time.

Ways of Knowing From Ancestors, Pottery Example  

In this activity, learn about five disciplinary lenses and how they can be applied to explore the question of how form relates to function in the objects you observe throughout this kit. 

Click on the Object Information and use the links below in Additional Resources research and find answers to these disciplinary questions! 

Applying Disciplinary Lenses to Objects 

People from all over the world study the Mesa Verde in the South West region because these archaeological sites hold rich data. The arid climate, large number of sites, and well-preserved wood in those sites have made it possible to develop a more complete chronology of this region than anywhere else in the world.  Trees produce growth rings of different sizes every year that reveal changes in precipitation.  Scientists use tree rings to pinpoint construction dates of buildings.

Tree Rings Can Tell Time

To understand what life was like in the past, we must look at various sources of information to discover clues and think critically about what they can tell us. To understand our oldest stories, such as ancient cultures, we rely on the incomplete records we find through archaeology to learn about populations of the past. 

Practice and compare the many lenses we can use to learn about the past while exploring the form, function, continuity and change of objects from across history.


Lesson Plan: The Dirt on Ancestral Puebloan Plaster and Paint

Lesson Plan: Pottery of the Ancestral Pueblo

Video:Rocky Mountain PBS Colorado Experience: Living West, Water

Colorado Encyclopedia Article on Mesa Verde National Park Colorado 

Encyclopedia Article Ancestral Puebloans of the Four Corners Region

Understanding the Past

You are a manager of a ski resort in the Rocky Mountains today and you need water to make snow for ski jumps. Add up how much water you need in a day.

7. How Much Water Did You Use In the Rocky Mountains?

You are a homestead farmer in the 1930’s and you need water for your family and cows. Add up how much water you need in a day.

5. How Much Water Did You Use During the Dust Bowl?

Homestead farmers needed water for their families and cows. In Baca County, farmers got water from wells and from irrigation projects that used small canals and ditches to move water to fields from reservoirs. 

4. The Dust Bowl in the 1930s

This timeline explores major droughts throughout Colorado's past. 

10. Droughts in Colorado's History

Which place and time used the most water?

8. Who Used The Most Water?

How much water do you think you’ve used today? Add up all the things you did this morning that need water!


9. Your Water Footprint Today

The top 10 largest wildfires in Colorado's history burned in the last 20 years. Explore the hotspot map to find out more about what caused these fires and what needs to change to prevent them. 

11. Wildfires in Colorado's History

In this resource kit, we’ll explore water in Colorado history, and how important water has been to people in the past and today. People need water for all kinds of purposes including drinking, cleaning, growing food, energy, recreation, and making things. Think about all of the ways that you used water today. Where does water in Colorado come from? Explore this map to discover common water sources in our state like snow, rain, and major rivers.

1. Where’s the Water? 

This is a live test page for the Apples to Oranges game for the Water Quest resource kit. 

12. Water Quest - Apples to Oranges

Ancestral Pueblo people thrived for thousands of years in a dry environment by respecting water. In the Mesa Verde region, water filters through the sandstone and emerges from seep springs. Ancestral Pueblo people often settled near these natural seep springs across the plateau and in canyon alcoves. They farmed in places that got the most rain and built check dams and terraces to keep water from running off. As the population grew, they built reservoirs to collect spring snowmelt and summer rain. At the end of the 1200s, a twenty-four year-long drought is one factor that may have led the ancestral Pueblo people to migrate out of the Mesa Verde region. 


2. The Mesa Verde Region in the 1200s

Imagine that you are an Ancestral Pueblo person living over 800 years ago and you need water for your village. Add up how much water you need in a day for yourself, the people, and turkeys that live in your village. 

3. How Much Water Did You Use in Mesa Verde?

Mountain towns like Breckenridge were once camps for Ute people who hunted here. Then miners and ranchers settled in and changed the landscape. Now, a growing ski industry and the flood of people visiting and living in our high country have transformed the mountains again. More people and a changing climate have led to a crucial moment in Colorado history: it’s up to us to determine our future.

6. The Rocky Mountains Today

From Mesa Verde to the Dust Bowl, and to the changing contemporary landscape of the Rocky Mountains, discover the important role water has played in Colorado history — and the environmental challenges people faced in the past and present.

Students explore the relationships three different communities had with this precious resource through STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) and geography activities, and consider implications for water usage in times of drought today. This resource kit is designed for upper elementary and middle school earth science and geography classes and can be adapted for lower elementary and high school students.

Guiding Questions for the Water Quest resource kit:

Where does water in Colorado come from? 

How have people in Colorado used water in the past and today? 

How much water have people used for themselves and different activities over time? 

Visit the Living West Exhibit at History Colorado Center in Denver

https://www.historycolorado.org/exhibit/living-west 

Drought and newcomers threaten Southern Colorado's traditional water systems

Ancestral Pueblo Indians of Southwestern Colorado

New Deal Resources on Colorado’s Eastern Plains

Burning Truth: The Beginning of the End for Colorado’s Forests

Colorado River Water Conservation District

Water Quest

Earth and Space Science

Science

Geography

U.S. History

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This video clip features Dolly Naranjo from the Santa Clara Pueblo.  She describes how to prepare and make clay the way her ancestors did.

Making Pottery Video

Description

Object Information

Appears In

Exploring Ways of Knowing

Understanding the Past

Water Quest