elle ne mange jamais de poisson

Thomas and Fabien didn't eat any croissants

Thomas et Fabien n'ont pas mangé de croissants

we have not been to Luxembourg

nous ne sommes pas allés au Luxembourg

we have never been to Mali

nous ne sommes jamais allés au Mali

she has never been to Lyon

elle n est jamais allée à Lyon

I have never eaten snails

je n ai jamais mangé d escargots

I have never seen the park in Chinnor

je n ai jamais vu le parc à Chinnor

he has never been to Germany

il n est jamais allé en Allemagne

we have not finished the homework

nous n avons pas fini les devoirs

Martine didn't make a mille-feuille

Martine n'a pas fait de mille-feuille

Fabrice hasn't finished his cassoulet

Fabrice n'a pas fini son cassoulet

Alice has never been to Wales

Alice n'est jamais allée au pays de Galles

she didn't go to the Netherlands

elle n'est pas allée aux Pays-Bas

Negatives - present and perfect tense

Past Simple vs Present Perfect - questions and negative sentences

Present perfect possitive, negative and questions

The present perfect, EFL A2 level, questions, past participle verbs, positive and negative statements, never, ever and yet

“There’s No Such Thing as Sound Science” by By Christie Aschwanden was a lead science writer for FiveThirtyEight. FiveThirtyEight, Science, Dec. 6, 2017 Science is being turned against itself. For decades, its twin ideals of transparency and rigor have been weaponized by those who disagree with results produced by the scientific method. Under the Trump administration, that fight has ramped up again. In a move ostensibly meant to reduce conflicts of interest, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has removed a number of scientists from advisory panels and replaced some of them with representatives from industries that the agency regulates. Like many in the Trump administration, Pruitt has also cast doubt on the reliability of climate science. For instance, in an interview with CNBC, Pruitt said that “measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do.” Similarly, Trump’s pick to head NASA, an agency that oversees a large portion the nation’s climate research, has insisted that research into human influence on climate lacks certainty, and he falsely claimed that “global temperatures stopped rising 10 years ago.” Kathleen Hartnett White, Trump’s nominee to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a Senate hearing last month that she thinks we “need to have more precise explanations of the human role and the natural role” in climate change. The same entreaties crop up again and again: We need to root out conflicts. We need more precise evidence. What makes these arguments so powerful is that they sound quite similar to the points raised by proponents of a very different call for change that’s coming from within science. This other movement strives to produce more robust, reproducible findings. Despite having dissimilar goals, the two forces espouse principles that look surprisingly alike: Science needs to be transparent. Results and methods should be openly shared so that outside researchers can independently reproduce and validate them. The methods used to collect and analyze data should be rigorous and clear, and conclusions must be supported by evidence. These are the arguments underlying an “open science” reform movement that was created, in part, as a response to a “reproducibility crisis” that has struck some fields of science.1 But they’re also used as talking points by politicians who are working to make it more difficult for the EPA and other federal agencies to use science in their regulatory decision-making, under the guise of basing policy on “sound science.” Science’s virtues are being wielded against it. What distinguishes the two calls for transparency is intent: Whereas the “open science” movement aims to make science more reliable, reproducible and robust, proponents of “sound science” have historically worked to amplify uncertainty, create doubt and undermine scientific discoveries that threaten their interests. “Our criticisms are founded in a confidence in science,” said Steven Goodman, co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford and a proponent of open science. “That’s a fundamental difference — we’re critiquing science to make it better. Others are critiquing it to devalue the approach itself.” Calls to base public policy on “sound science” seem unassailable if you don’t know the term’s history. The phrase was adopted by the tobacco industry in the 1990s to counteract mounting evidence linking secondhand smoke to cancer. A 1992 Environmental Protection Agency report identified secondhand smoke as a human carcinogen, and Philip Morris responded by launching an initiative to promote what it called “sound science.” In an internal memo, Philip Morris vice president of corporate affairs Ellen Merlo wrote that the program was designed to “discredit the EPA report,” “prevent states and cities, as well as businesses from passing smoking bans” and “proactively” pass legislation to help their cause. The sound science tactic exploits a fundamental feature of the scientific process: Science does not produce absolute certainty. Contrary to how it’s sometimes represented to the public, science is not a magic wand that turns everything it touches to truth. Instead, it’s a process of uncertainty reduction, much like a game of 20 Questions. Any given study can rarely answer more than one question at a time, and each study usually raises a bunch of new questions in the process of answering old ones. “Science is a process rather than an answer,” said psychologist Alison Ledgerwood of the University of California, Davis. Every answer is provisional and subject to change in the face of new evidence. It’s not entirely correct to say that “this study proves this fact,” Ledgerwood said. “We should be talking instead about how science increases or decreases our confidence in something.” The tobacco industry’s brilliant tactic was to turn this baked-in uncertainty against the scientific enterprise itself. While insisting that they merely wanted to ensure that public policy was based on sound science, tobacco companies defined the term in a way that ensured that no science could ever be sound enough. The only sound science was certain science, which is an impossible standard to achieve. “Doubt is our product,” wrote one employee of the Brown & Williamson tobacco company in a 1969 internal memo. The note went on to say that doubt “is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’” and “establishing a controversy.” These strategies for undermining inconvenient science were so effective that they’ve served as a sort of playbook for industry interests ever since, said Stanford University science historian Robert Proctor. The sound science push is no longer just Philip Morris sowing doubt about the links between cigarettes and cancer. It’s also a 1998 action plan by the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron and Exxon Mobil to “install uncertainty” about the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. It’s industry-funded groups’ late-1990s effort to question the science the EPA was using to set fine-particle-pollution air-quality standards that the industry didn’t want. And then there was the more recent effort by Dow Chemical to insist on more scientific certainty before banning a pesticide that the EPA’s scientists had deemed risky to children. Now comes a move by the Trump administration’s EPA to repeal a 2015 rule on wetlands protection by disregarding particular studies. (To name just a few examples.) Doubt merchants aren’t pushing for knowledge, they’re practicing what Proctor has dubbed “agnogenesis” — the intentional manufacture of ignorance. This ignorance isn’t simply the absence of knowing something; it’s a lack of comprehension deliberately created by agents who don’t want you to know, Proctor said.2 In the hands of doubt-makers, transparency becomes a rhetorical move. “It’s really difficult as a scientist or policy maker to make a stand against transparency and openness, because well, who would be against it?” said Karen Levy, researcher on information science at Cornell University. But at the same time, “you can couch everything in the language of transparency and it becomes a powerful weapon.” For instance, when the EPA was preparing to set new limits on particulate pollution in the 1990s, industry groups pushed back against the research and demanded access to primary data (including records that researchers had promised participants would remain confidential) and a reanalysis of the evidence. Their calls succeeded and a new analysis was performed. The reanalysis essentially confirmed the original conclusions, but the process of conducting it delayed the implementation of regulations and cost researchers time and money. Delay is a time-tested strategy. “Gridlock is the greatest friend a global warming skeptic has,” said Marc Morano, a prominent critic of global warming research and the executive director of ClimateDepot.com, in the documentary “Merchants of Doubt” (based on the book by the same name). Morano’s site is a project of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which has received funding from the oil and gas industry. “We’re the negative force. We’re just trying to stop stuff.” Some of these ploys are getting a fresh boost from Congress. The Data Quality Act (also known as the Information Quality Act) was reportedly written by an industry lobbyist and quietly passed as part of an appropriations bill in 2000. The rule mandates that federal agencies ensure the “quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information” that they disseminate, though it does little to define what these terms mean. The law also provides a mechanism for citizens and groups to challenge information that they deem inaccurate, including science that they disagree with. “It was passed in this very quiet way with no explicit debate about it — that should tell you a lot about the real goals,” Levy said. But what’s most telling about the Data Quality Act is how it’s been used, Levy said. A 2004 Washington Post analysis found that in the 20 months following its implementation, the act was repeatedly used by industry groups to push back against proposed regulations and bog down the decision-making process. Instead of deploying transparency as a fundamental principle that applies to all science, these interests have used transparency as a weapon to attack very particular findings that they would like to eradicate. Now Congress is considering another way to legislate how science is used. The Honest Act, a bill sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas,3 is another example of what Levy calls a “Trojan horse” law that uses the language of transparency as a cover to achieve other political goals. Smith’s legislation would severely limit the kind of evidence the EPA could use for decision-making. Only studies whose raw data and computer codes were publicly available would be allowed for consideration. That might sound perfectly reasonable, and in many cases it is, Goodman said. But sometimes there are good reasons why researchers can’t conform to these rules, like when the data contains confidential or sensitive medical information.4 Critics, which include more than a dozen scientific organizations, argue that, in practice, the rules would prevent many studies from being considered in EPA reviews.5 It might seem like an easy task to sort good science from bad, but in reality it’s not so simple. “There’s a misplaced idea that we can definitively distinguish the good from the not-good science, but it’s all a matter of degree,” said Brian Nosek, executive director of the Center for Open Science. “There is no perfect study.” Requiring regulators to wait until they have (nonexistent) perfect evidence is essentially “a way of saying, ‘We don’t want to use evidence for our decision-making,’” Nosek said. Most scientific controversies aren’t about science at all, and once the sides are drawn, more data is unlikely to bring opponents into agreement. Michael Carolan, who researches the sociology of technology and scientific knowledge at Colorado State University, wrote in a 2008 paper about why objective knowledge is not enough to resolve environmental controversies. “While these controversies may appear on the surface to rest on disputed questions of fact, beneath often reside differing positions of value; values that can give shape to differing understandings of what ‘the facts’ are.” What’s needed in these cases isn’t more or better science, but mechanisms to bring those hidden values to the forefront of the discussion so that they can be debated transparently. “As long as we continue down this unabashedly naive road about what science is, and what it is capable of doing, we will continue to fail to reach any sort of meaningful consensus on these matters,” Carolan writes. The dispute over tobacco was never about the science of cigarettes’ link to cancer. It was about whether companies have the right to sell dangerous products and, if so, what obligations they have to the consumers who purchased them. Similarly, the debate over climate change isn’t about whether our planet is heating, but about how much responsibility each country and person bears for stopping it. While researching her book “Merchants of Doubt,” science historian Naomi Oreskes found that some of the same people who were defending the tobacco industry as scientific experts were also receiving industry money to deny the role of human activity in global warming. What these issues had in common, she realized, was that they all involved the need for government action. “None of this is about the science. All of this is a political debate about the role of government,” she said in the documentary. These controversies are really about values, not scientific facts, and acknowledging that would allow us to have more truthful and productive debates. What would that look like in practice? Instead of cherry-picking evidence to support a particular view (and insisting that the science points to a desired action), the various sides could lay out the values they are using to assess the evidence. For instance, in Europe, many decisions are guided by the precautionary principle — a system that values caution in the face of uncertainty and says that when the risks are unclear, it should be up to industries to show that their products and processes are not harmful, rather than requiring the government to prove that they are harmful before they can be regulated. By contrast, U.S. agencies tend to wait for strong evidence of harm before issuing regulations. Both approaches have critics, but the difference between them comes down to priorities: Is it better to exercise caution at the risk of burdening companies and perhaps the economy, or is it more important to avoid potential economic downsides even if it means that sometimes a harmful product or industrial process goes unregulated? In other words, under what circumstances do we agree to act on a risk? How certain do we need to be that the risk is real, and how many people would need to be at risk, and how costly is it to reduce that risk? Those are moral questions, not scientific ones, and openly discussing and identifying these kinds of judgment calls would lead to a more honest debate. Science matters, and we need to do it as rigorously as possible. But science can’t tell us how risky is too risky to allow products like cigarettes or potentially harmful pesticides to be sold — those are value judgements that only humans can make.

Health 11/12 Review for Final Exam Core Concepts - Mental and Emotional Health, Substance Abuse Prevention, Safety and Violence Prevention, Family Life and Human Sexuality, Disease Prevention and Control, Healthy Eating Health Education Skills - goal setting, decision making, accessing information/resources, analyzing influences, communication, self-management, advocacy DIMENSIONS of Wellness - social, spiritual, emotional/mental, environmental, financial, intellectual, multicultural, occupational, physical, sexual RISK factors - anything that increases the risk of disease, injury, or illness. PROTECTIVE factors - anything that decreases the risk of disease, injury, or illness. INTERNAL health factors - health factors that can be either hereditary and genetic or acquired elements -- include smoking and personal diet or eating habits. Example – a genetic predisposition to an illness. EXTERNAL health factors - health factors that are part of the direct outer environment, the geographical location, micro-organisms, socio-economic elements that could affect an individual's health. Example – being unable to afford mental health services. Unit 1- Managing Personal and Community Wellness Explain Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in your own words using the image provided. Explain how each Social Determinant of Health may impact a person’s health. Levels of Disease Prevention • PRIMARY The goal is to avoid conditions altogether. • SECONDARY The goal is early detection. • TERTIARY The goal is to minimize the damage (manage). Define the following terms. Fads/Trends Sleep hygiene Driver safety Unit 2- Investigating Social Ecological Factors on Well-Being Socio-Ecological Model – The SEM examines how health behaviors form based on characteristics of individuals, communities, nations and levels in between. Each level overlaps with other levels signifying how the best public health strategies are those that encompass and target a wide range of perspectives. Interpersonal (personal) health vs. intrapersonal (relationship) health Health INEQUITY - systemic, ingrained and unjust barriers that prevent segments of the population from having the opportunity of health leading to health disparity. IMPLICIT BIAS - a form of bias that occurs automatically and unintentionally, that nevertheless affects judgments, decisions, and behaviors. Research has shown implicit bias can contribute to unequal access to quality healthcare, negative patient-provider relationships and interactions; and create mistrust in the healthcare system and practitioners among patients. This can contribute to health disparities. Health DISPARITY - represents a difference in health between populations. It is often used to describe disease burden and other negative health outcomes socially disadvantaged groups may face. Health EQUITY - The opposite of health inequity. It describes a system that supports a high standard of health and healthcare for all people. Racism - Beliefs, attitudes, institutional arrangements, and acts that tend to denigrate individuals or groups because of phenotypic characteristics or ethnic group affiliation. DISCRIMINATION - An unjust differential treatment of a person or a group. PRIVILEGE- The unearned access to resources and social power that are only available to some because of their membership within certain social groups. OPPRESSION is the act of taking away choices from others and can be defined as a system that maintains advantage and disadvantage based on social identities and that acts on multiple levels from interpersonal to institutional and societal. (internalized, interpersonal, institutional, structural) Systematic Oppression - Intentional disadvantage of groups of people based on their identity while advantaging members of dominant group (race, gender, sexual orientation, language, size, ability, etc.). Intersectionality - The complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups Unit 3- Accessing Resources and Communicating to Support Mental and Emotional Health What is anger? What is anxiety? What is stress? STRESSORS are the things that cause stress. Stressors can be internal and external. A stressor may be a one-time or short-term occurrence, or it can happen repeatedly over a long time. INTERNAL Stressors - are made by your belief system and the way you evaluate yourself. Examples include pessimistic attitude, negative self-talk, deep need to be perfect, low self-esteem or body image, unhealthy standards for self. EXTERNAL Stressors - are stressful things that happen in your surroundings and/or in your environment. Examples include busy schedules, work problems, family issues, financial trouble, social problems, injury, unforeseen circumstances. Socio-economic issues are also a part of external stressors such as poverty, violence, and racism. Define the following mental health conditions. Depression Eating disorders NSSI Non-suicidal self-injury Grief/Loss Suicide prevention A.C.T. • ACKNOWLEDGE- Tell them in a caring way that you recognize that they are having a problem • CARE- You can show you care by actively listening - put away anything else you are doing, make eye contact, sit down, ask questions. • TELL-(call 988 for additional help and support) - Tell them it is important that they speak with a trusted adult. Help them figure out who this may be and offer to go with your friend. A social norm is an unwritten, informal rule meant to guide behavior among the of society. It distinguishes between acceptable and unacceptable, good and bad, and so on. Social norms can influence a person with emotional or mental health disorders, access to care and stigmatize their situation. STIGMA- a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. • Self-stigma - This describes the internalized stigma that people with mental health conditions feel about themselves. • Public stigma - This refers to the negative attitudes around mental health from people in society. • Institutional stigma - This is a type of systemic stigma that arises from corporations, governments, and other institutions. Unit 4- Evaluating Risks of Substance Use and Abuse Harm Reduction - a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use. Explain how each level of the Social Ecological Model is impacted by addiction. Individual Relationship Community Society SEM Level Contributing/Risk Factors to substance use Preventative/Protective Factors for substance use Individual Interpersonal/Relationship Community Society Unit 5- Analyzing Influences to Examine Ways to Increase Safety and Reduce Violence HATE CRIME - a crime, usually violent, motivated by prejudice or intolerance toward an individual’s national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability. Explain how the media influences violence in society. The Pyramid of Hate Explain the escalation of hate using the Pyramid of Hate visual. List several hate crime motivators. Example: age HEALTHY Relationship Signs - comfortable pace, trust, honesty, independence, respect, equality, kindness, taking responsibility, healthy conflict, fun UNHEALTHY Relationship Signs - intensity, possessiveness, manipulation, isolation, sabotage, belittling, guilting, volatility, deflecting responsibility, betrayal Sexual Assault is a sexual behavior WITHOUT consent. Human trafficking - the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, using force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. Sex trafficking - commercial sex act induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age. Trafficking happens using… • Force - using violence to control someone. • Fraud - using lies to control someone. • Coercion - using threats to control someone. Unit 6- Family Life and Human Sexuality Agency - A belief about yourself and the extent to which you can act on that belief. • The ability to choose freely one’s own narrative. • To embrace the idea that I am the cause (or agent) of my own thoughts and actions. • Personal agency is a personal responsibility for who we are, what we experience, what we do about that experience, and how we shape our world to give us more of the experiences we want. SEXUAL Agency • The ability to choose your own interests and desires vs. what we see in the media or others’ perceptions • The ability to identify, communicate, and negotiate one’s sexual needs • The ability to initiate behaviors that allow for the satisfaction of those needs Sexually Explicit Material - photographs, videos, films, magazines, and books whose primary themes, topics, or depictions involve sexuality that may cause sexual arousal. Sexual scripts - thoughts, patterns, or behavior that a person has about themselves in a romantic or sexual context. It is how people picture themselves or want to project themselves in front of others. Reproductive Rights of Teens - In Maryland, teens have the right to an abortion, keep their child, obtain and use birth control, paternity tests, adoption, give up custody of their child within 10 days of birth (Safe Haven Law). • REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS- legal rights and the freedom of the individual to control decisions regarding contraception, abortion, sterilization and childbirth. • SAFE HAVEN LAW- a distressed parent who is unable or unwilling to care for their infant can safely give up custody of their baby, no questions asked. CONSENT is an agreement between participants to engage in sexual activity. • It is clearly and freely communicated, verbal, and affirmative. Consent CANNOT be given if… • A person is underage, one or both partners is intoxicated or incapacitated by drugs or alcohol, one partner is asleep or unconscious, one partner feels pressured, threatened or intimidated, or one partner holds a position of power or authority over the other. Unit 7- Advocating for Enhanced Nutrition, Food Systems, and Health Outcomes Dietary Guidelines for Americans Guideline 1: Follow a Healthy Dietary Pattern at Every Life Stage Guideline 2: Customize and Enjoy Food and Beverage Choices to Reflect Personal Preferences, Cultural Traditions, and Budgetary Considerations Guideline 3: Focus on Meeting Food Group Needs with Nutrient-Dense Foods and Beverages, and Stay Within Calorie Limits Guideline 4: Limit Foods and Beverages Higher in Added Sugars, Saturated Fat, and Sodium, and Limit Alcoholic Beverages FOOD DESERT- a neighborhood where there is little or limited access to healthy and affordable food such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk and other foods that make up the full range of a healthy diet. FOOD INSEQURITY lack of access to a sufficient amount of food because of limited funds. More than 49 million American households are considered food insecure and are vulnerable to poor health as a result. PROCCESED FOODS- any raw agricultural commodities that have been washed, cleaned, milled, cut, chopped, heated, pasteurized, blanched, cooked, canned, frozen, dried, dehydrated, mixed or packaged — anything done to them that alters their natural state.

Singapore, a city-state that imports most of its food from other countries, started experimenting with vertical farming to scale up local food production as early as 2009. Having limited land but a large population, Singapore has expanded upward by building high-rise “farm walls,” which allow plants to grow up, rather than across the land. With a population of 23 million, Taiwan should follow Singapore’s example and develop vertical farming because this farming method can address issues such as limited land, water, and agricultural workers. 2 First, the rainwater-driven rotary system in vertical farms makes better use of land and, therefore, may help deal with the farmland issue in Taiwan. Taiwan has lost a lot of agricultural land to industrial and domestic use. This land issue can be addressed by the rotary system, which allows farmers to move racks of plants—one by one—as high as nine meters up in the air to get enough sunlight. Each vertical farm in Singapore has more than 20 racks of rotating plant-growing containers, providing an efficient way to make the most of limited land space. 3 Second, aside from the efficient use of land, the rotary system helps save water, which can prevent a lack of water during water rationing. Despite the fact that Taiwan has a lot more annual rainfall than the world average, much of it quickly flows down steep mountains into the sea, which makes collecting rainwater difficult. In vertical farms, plants are watered by recycled rainwater precisely where they need to be when the racks are rotated down to the micro-sprinklers. Singapore’s urban farming has proved that this sustainable irrigation method allows plants to be grown with only 5% of the water used in traditional agriculture. 4 Third, the operation of vertical farms relies greatly on machines and thus may ease the problem of having a declining number of agricultural workers. Low pay, long hours, and tough working conditions on traditional farms mean most young people would rather choose other careers, which results in an age gap in agriculture with many more older workers than younger ones. Such a negative impact could be reduced by the highly-computerized work on vertical farms. Mostly operated by machines, the work on vertical farms is lighter. As a result, fewer workers are needed on vertical farms. 5 Given these points, vertical farming appears to be the perfect solution for Taiwan, and we are technologically prepared for this new farming method. One biotechnology company in Taiwan has been working with a Danish partner since 2020, and they have successfully run a vertical farm in Copenhagen. If we can build more vertical farms in Taiwan, many agricultural issues can be dealt with, and city citizens may be able to start growing and harvesting food sustainably at the touch of a button.

Contact with the Americas In 1001, Viking sailors led by Leif Erikson reached the eastern tip of North America. Archaeologists have found evidence of the Viking settlement of Vinland in present-day Newfoundland, Canada. The Vikings did not stay in Vinland long and no one is sure why they left. However, Viking stories describe fierce battles with Skraelings, the Viking name for the Inuit. Evidence suggests that Asians continued to cross the Bering Sea into North America after the last ice age ended. Some scholars believe that ancient seafarers from Polynesia may have traveled to the Americas using their knowledge of the stars and winds. Modern Polynesians have sailed canoes thousands of miles in this way. Still others think that fishing boats from China and Japan blew off course and landed on the western coast of North or South America. Perhaps such voyages occurred. If so, they were long forgotten. Before 1492, the peoples of Asia and Europe had no knowledge of the Americas and their remarkable civilizations. The Voyages of Columbus Portuguese sailors had pioneered new routes around Africa toward Asia in the late 1400s. Spain, too, wanted a share of the riches. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella hoped to keep their rival, Portugal, from controlling trade with India, China, and Japan. They agreed to finance a voyage of exploration by Christopher Columbus. Columbus, an Italian sea captain, planned to reach the East Indies by sailing west across the Atlantic. Finding a sea route straight to Asia would give the Spanish direct access to the silks, spices, and precious metals of Asia. The spice trade was a major cause for European exploration and a reason the Spanish rulers supported Columbus’s voyage. They also wanted wealth from any source. “Get gold,” King Ferdinand said to Columbus. “Humanely if possible, but at all hazards—get gold.” Crossing the Atlantic In August 1492, Columbus set out with three ships and about 90 sailors. As captain, he commanded the largest vessel, the Santa María. The other ships were the Niña and the Pinta. After a brief stop at the Canary Islands, the little fleet continued west into unknown seas. Fair winds sped them along, but a month passed without the sight of land. Some sailors began to grumble. They had never been away from land for so long and feared being lost at sea. Still, Columbus sailed on. On October 7, sailors saw flocks of birds flying southwest. Columbus changed course to follow the birds. A few days later, crew members spotted tree branches and flowers floating in the water. At 2 a.m. on October 12, the lookout on the Pinta spotted white cliffs shining in the moonlight. “Tierra! Tierra!” he shouted. “Land! Land!” At dawn, Columbus rowed ashore and planted the banner of Spain. He was convinced that he had reached the East Indies in Asia. He called the people he found there “Indians.” In fact, he had reached islands off the coasts of North America and South America in the Caribbean Sea. These islands later became known as the West Indies. For three months, Columbus explored the West Indies. To his delight, he found signs of gold on the islands. Eager to report his success, he returned to Spain. Columbus Claims Lands for Spain In Spain, Columbus presented Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand with gifts of pink pearls and brilliantly colored parrots. Columbus brought with him many things that Europeans had never seen before: tobacco, pineapples, and hammocks used for sleeping. Columbus also described the “Indians” he had met, the Taino (ty noh). The Taino, he promised, could easily be converted to Christianity and could also be used as slaves. The Spanish monarchs were impressed. They gave Columbus the title Admiral of the Ocean Sea. They also agreed to finance future voyages. The promise of great wealth, and the chance to spread Christianity, gave them a reason to explore further. Columbus made three more voyages across the Atlantic. In 1493, he founded the first Spanish colony in the Americas, Santo Domingo, on an island he called Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic). A colony is an area settled and ruled by the government of a distant land. Columbus also explored present-day Cuba and Jamaica. He sailed along the coasts of Central America and northern South America. He claimed all of these lands for Queen Isabella of Spain. Columbus proved to be a better explorer than governor. During his third expedition, settlers on Hispaniola complained of his harsh rule. Queen Isabella appointed an investigator, who sent Columbus back to Spain in chains. In the end, the queen pardoned Columbus, but he never regained the honors he had won earlier. He died in 1506, still convinced that he had reached Asia. The Impact of Columbus’s Voyages Columbus has long been honored as the bold sea captain who “discovered America.” Today, we recognize that American Indians had discovered and settled these lands long before 1492. We also recognize that Columbus and the Europeans who followed him treated the ancient inhabitants of the Americas brutally. Still, Columbus’s voyages did change history. They marked the beginning of lasting contact among the peoples of Europe, Africa, and the Americas. For a great many American Indians, contact had tragic results. Columbus and those who followed were convinced that European culture was superior to that of the Indians. The Spanish claimed Taino lands and forced the Taino to work in gold mines, on ranches, or in Spanish households. Many Taino died from harsh conditions or European diseases. The Taino population was wiped out. Still, the voyages of Columbus signaled a turning point for the Americas. A turning point is a moment in history that marks a decisive change. Curious Europeans saw the new lands as a place where they could settle, trade, and grow rich. Spanish Exploration Continues After the voyages of Columbus, the Spanish explored and settled other Caribbean islands that Columbus had found. They sought gold, land for crops, people to enslave, and converts to Christianity for the Spanish crown. By 1511, they had conquered Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Cuba. They also explored the eastern coasts of North America and South America in search of a western route to Asia. In 1513, Vasco Núñez de Balboa (bal boh uh) crossed the Isthmus of Panama. American Indians had told him that a large body of water lay to the west. With a party of Spanish soldiers and Indians, Balboa reached the Pacific Ocean and claimed the ocean for Spain. The Spanish had no idea how wide the Pacific was until a sea captain named Ferdinand Magellan (muh jel un) sailed across it. The expedition—made up of five ships and about 250 crew members—left Spain in 1519. Fifteen months later, it cut through the stormy southern tip of South America by way of what is now known as the Strait of Magellan and entered the Pacific Ocean. Crossing the vast Pacific, the sailors ran out of food: Primary Source “We remained 3 months and 20 days without taking in provisions or other refreshments and ate only old biscuit reduced to powder, full of grubs and stinking from the dirt which rats had made on it. We drank water that was yellow and stinking.” —Antonio Pigafetta, The Diary of Antonio Pigafetta Magellan himself was killed in a battle with the local people of the Philippine Islands off the coast of Asia. In 1522, only one ship and 18 sailors returned to Spain. They were the first people to circumnavigate, or sail completely around, the world. In doing so, they had found an all-water western route to Asia. Europeans became aware of the true size of the Earth. How Did the Columbian Exchange Affect the Rest of the World? The encounter between the peoples of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres sparked a global exchange of goods and ideas. Because it started with the voyages of Columbus, this transfer is known as the Columbian Exchange. The Columbian Exchange refers to a biological and cultural exchange of animals, plants, human populations, diseases, food, government, technology, the arts, and languages. The exchange went in both directions. Europeans learned much from American Indians. At the same time, Europeans contributed in many ways to the culture of the Americas. This exchange also brought about many modifications, or changes, to the physical environment of the Americas, with both positive and negative results. Changing Environments Europeans introduced domestic animals such as chickens from Europe and Africa. European pigs, cattle, and horses often escaped into the wild and multiplied rapidly. Forests and grasslands were converted to pastures. As horses spread through what would become the United States, Indians learned to ride them and used them to carry heavy loads. Plants from Europe and Africa changed the way American Indians lived. The first bananas came from the Canary Islands. By 1520, one Spaniard reported that banana trees had spread “so greatly that it is marvelous to see the great abundance of them.” Oranges, lemons, and figs were also new to the Americas. In North America, explorers also brought such plants as bluegrass, the daisy, and the dandelion. These plants spread quickly in American soil and modified American grasslands. Tragically, Europeans also brought new diseases, such as smallpox and influenza. American Indians had no resistance to these diseases. Historians estimate that within 75 years, diseases from Europe had killed almost 90 percent of the people in the Caribbean Islands and in Mexico. American Indian Influences on Europe, Africa and Asia American Indians introduced Europeans to valuable food crops such as corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, tomatoes, manioc, squash, peanuts, pineapples, and blueberries. Today, almost half the world’s food crops come from plants that were first grown in the Americas. Europeans carried the new foods with them as they sailed around the world. Everywhere, people’s diets changed and populations increased. In South Asia, people used American hot peppers and chilies to spice stews. Chinese peasants began growing corn and sweet potatoes. Italians made sauces from tomatoes. People in West Africa grew manioc and corn. European settlers often adopted American Indian skills. In the North, Indians showed Europeans how to use snowshoes and trap beavers and other fur-bearing animals. European explorers learned how to paddle Indian canoes. Some leaders studied American Indian political structures. In the 1700s, Benjamin Franklin admired the Iroquois League and urged American colonists to unite in a similar way. Positive and Negative Consequences Through the Columbian Exchange, Europeans and American Indians modified their environments and gained new resources and skills. At the same time, warfare and disease killed many on both sides. Europeans viewed expansion positively. They gained great wealth, explored trade routes, and spread Christianity. Yet their farming, mining, and diseases took a toll on the physical environment and left many American Indians dead. Despite these negatives, the Columbian Exchange shaped the modern world, including what would become the United States.

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