Why do people go on voyages

Smith actively looks for places that represent the edge of the world. One of his most memorable journeys was a nine-month, 16,km bike trip around the Australian outback. It never even occurred to me.

Not once. The thought never crossed my mind. Are you a risk taker? Georgetown University associate professor and neuroscientist John W Vanmeter studies risk for a living and has a good idea of why people like Smith never think about quitting. There are two regions of the brain that promote and counteract risky behaviour. The limbic system is driven by novelty and is particularly sensitive to reward from positive and negative stimuli. The prefrontal cortex, on the other hand, makes executive decisions and puts the break on potentially risky decisions.

Those who are driven to explore, Vanmeter explained, may have more activity in the limbic system. What ways do you think exploration has shaped our world? Hint: think about the voyages of past and present-day explorers, how technology has changed, and how commerce has changed. If students need ideas, allow them to do research online about these questions.

Ask them to discuss and write down their ideas in small groups and then share them with the class. With exploration, the goal is simply to find out more about a place.

With an expedition, scientists or explorers have some background knowledge but seek evidence, or data, to help in answering specific questions. Expeditions also require substantial planning to ensure they are able to achieve this purpose.

Have students share their ideas with the class. Write down the ideas on butcher paper and keep them for use in Activity 2—Plan and Prepare for an Expedition—to help students keep the characteristics of an expedition clear in their minds.

Have students analyze a present-day expedition. Explain to students that there is a place far from people, barely explored, and full of danger, that needs to be explored now because the risk is that it will soon be lost. Have students answer these three questions in a paragraph for each:.

Conclude the activity by explaining that students will now focus in the next set of activities on the details of conducting an expedition, culminating in implementing their own micro-expeditions. They should keep their ideas from this activity in mind throughout the process to help them develop their plans.

Have students summarize in writing their ideas for the questions in Step 4. Kenny Broad talks about why he liked to explore as a kid and where his interest in water exploration came from. Ask: What do you think is his motivation for exploration, past and present? Students can research present-day explorers on the National Geographic Explorers website. Students can choose an explorer and determine the purpose of their explorations.

Exploration has a broad definition but can be considered travel over new territory—undiscovered or new to the explorer—for adventure or discovery, or looking at something in a careful way to learn more about it. An expedition is a journey that requires planning and purpose setting, and is usually undertaken by a group of people, for a specific purpose, such as to explore a distant place or to do research.

Students can research citizen science opportunities that align with their exploration interests. Have them explore CitSci. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit.

The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited. In succinct pages, Exploration: A Very Short Introduction chronicles journeys of discovery from the pre-historic trek of humans across the land bridge over the Bering Strait some 12, years ago to the midth century deep sea voyages of Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Along the way, Weaver identifies what defines exploration during each era and places these historic achievements in the largest possible global context: that of the natural history of the earth itself.

An avid hiker and coauthor with Maurice Isserman of Fallen Giants , an award-winning history of Himalayan mountaineering, Weaver gives as much credit to those who climb mountains and don scuba gear as to the first people to set out across the open ocean.

Exploration typically grows out of the cultural exchange of goods and ideas when two populations meet, explains Weaver. Native peoples, who often served as unsung guides, are essential to success.

Weaver includes famous explorations, from the Lewis and Clark expedition to the first moon landing. But he was far from being either the lone visionary or the arch villain of competing classroom mythologies.

Taken together, this millennia-long record of travel provides a reminder of the extreme hardships involved in venturing into the unknown. The boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap of wood and made his way to Lisbon, where he eventually studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He also began to hatch the plan that would change the world forever. At the end of the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Asia from Europe by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid.

Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking to the sea: They sailed south along the West African coast and around the Cape of Good Hope. But Columbus had a different idea: Why not sail west across the Atlantic instead of around the massive African continent?

He argued incorrectly that the circumference of the Earth was much smaller than his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that the journey by boat from Europe to Asia should be not only possible, but comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. He presented his plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until that he found a sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along with the opportunity to export Catholicism to lands across the globe. Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador. In January , leaving several dozen men behind in a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic , he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary during his first voyage. More troublingly, it also recorded his initial impressions of the local people and his argument for why they should be enslaved.

They have no iron …They would make fine servants … With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. About six months later, in September , Columbus returned to the Americas.