Despite some hiccups with access to the Voyages database (Voyages: The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database) my B block World History beta testers were able to blaze the path for our other 7th graders. One of the most impressive archives on the web, Voyages: The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database is the product of a massive undertaking from a network of scholars, technology experts, and government organizations from around the world who have invested thousands of hours into building a database of nearly 36,000 slaving voyages. Users can search the database using a variety of variables including a ship’s name, year of arrival, number of captives transported, outcome of voyage, embarkation and disembarkation locations, and the ship’s flag.
We are tweaking and editing the process as we go with this group of kids, but the rest of the 7th grade will benefit from the efforts of this class. Tailoring the exploration of such a vast amount of data to middle schoolers is tricky, but we learn as we go. Lucy and I are excited to have the students use their math, mapping, and research skills to further their understanding of the scale of the Atlantic Slave Trade and the role of individual countries within it.
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