This spring the oldest students started a unit on the Silk Road. The four objectives of this unit included being able to identify the major physical features that hindered travel between China and Europe. To discover how ideas, cultures and goods were exchanged through the Silk Road. Relate the ideas of trade and globalization to today. Compare inventions and major events taking place in other places during the same period. Students listened to “Between the Dragon and the Eagle,” a story surrounding a bolt of blue silk that travels the full length of the Silk Road, from China to Rome. Students read and responded to texts about the era, and watched videos of showing what the area looks like today. Students worked for weeks creating a large map showing the deserts, countries, rivers, mountains, cities, lakes, and oceans of the region. They also researched items that travelled the Silk Road, discovering where these ideas, foods, animals originated. Two time lines (220 BC – 1453 AD) show important events on the Silk road, and the second time line shows important events happening in the rest of the world.