Aztec Floating Gardens

As part of our study of the ancient Maya, Inca, and Aztec civilizations, we learned how each of these groups adapted to their climate and landscape to grow (mostly) corn, beans, and squash.  We discovered that the Maya created "terraces" in the hills to capture rain water and used cenotes, or natural sinkhole, to irrigate their fields.  The Inca cultivated potatoes and were the first culture to use "freeze drying" to keep crops through the winter. And the Aztec developed "floating gardens," or chinampas, to grow crops in shallow water by building up small plots of land on wooden lattices.

Throughout this lesson, I emphasized a few important vocabulary words:

• Maize - corn
• Crops - food grown by people
• Fertile - able to grow things 

The kiddos were very interested in all the different ways that people used the land to survive.  As a culmination of this unit learning, and also a fun hands-on exploration, we decided to build and plant our own "floating gardens." Of course, we used popsicle sticks and cheese cloth instead of wooden stakes, mud, and sediment, but generally the kiddos got to experience planting beans and watching them grow in standing water.

We are planning to use our floating gardens as part of our Museum Exhibit on the Maya, Inca, and Aztec civilizations.

 

       

Building our floating garden

Planting Bean Seeds