Enlightenment

Sir Isaac Newton Discovers Laws of Gravity! Nicolaus Copernicus Proves Galileo Galilei Wrong! Francis Bacon Supports Experimentation Over Theory! These could have been newspaper headlines during the Scientific Revolution, a phenomenon that paved the way for the Enlightenment.

In this Unit, kids dive into the key features of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment and the thinkers who developed them – the scientific method, changes in government, reforms in the justice system, and the assent of reason. They explore how women of the time worked to change their role in society, from being ornaments in the home to being thinkers and writers in their own right. And they come to appreciate how the Enlightenment changed society around the world, beginning with the American Revolution and continuing with revolutions in France and various countries of Latin America.

Kids particularly fascinated by early American history will enjoy finding out the origin of many of the founding principles of our country. Kids with a special interest in Latin America will want to explore how the ideas of the Enlightenment affected the history of countries on that continent. Primary source images throughout the Unit bring the people and developments of the Enlightenment to life, while graphical depictions of the main ideas about the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment will help kids recall these most significant phenomena.