Consequences of the Colombian Exchange & WIL 1.2

So, our classes were disrupted a little because half of period 3 attended the important auditorium.  I hope you took in the experience, because everything presented is not only true, but extremely important.  This is still a time in your life when your only expectation is to simply learn.  You'll have the rest of your life to work, so cherish this while you can.

In class, we discussed the Colombian Exchange questions presented (cool Prezi here)through the first two days.  We then watched Crash Course 23 The Colombian Exchange (embedded below).  I hope you were attentive through the end, when this week's WIL question was presented,

"The Colombian Exchange has included man, and he has changed the Old and New Worlds. Sometimes inadvertently, sometimes intentionally, often brutally. It is possible that he and the plants and animals he brings with him have caused the extinction of life forms in the last four hundred years than the usual process of evolution might kill off in a million... The Colombian Exchange has left us with not a richer, but a more impoverished genetic pool. We, all of the life on the planet, are the less for Columbus, and the impoverishment will increase."

Crosby, Alfred from "The Colombian Exchange"

Consider how many people died due to the Colombian Exchange...ALL of those experiences, ideas, and potential...gone - forever.  Is the world a better place due to the Colombian Exchange?  Are the gains made in terms of health, technology, knowledge, and population growth worth the near-extinction of Native American people & cultures? Or...How important or irrelevant (NOT important) is any individual in history?  

Tomorrow, we will look at what happened on that fateful day in 2001.  It changed the course of history and radically altered plans to result in the outcomes we experience every day from here on out.