Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh, my! Sorcerers, cyclops, and drugs, oh, my! Matt Kaplan theorizes that there might be a scientific basis for some of the events in the Odyssey, that Circe might actually have been a chemist and have mixed jimson weed into the food of Odysseus's crew, causing them to hallucinate. What fun!

Concepts

the odyssey, homer, the trojan war

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Additional Tags

social studies

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Instructional Ideas

• For other examples, check our Linnda Caporael's paper "Ergotism: The Satan Loosed in Salem" in which she theorizes that ergot, a fungus that infects rye, can explain events depicted in The Crucible 

Classroom Considerations

• Flip the lesson and have class members view the video, check out the research links, and complete the quiz before returning for a full-class discussion

Pros

• The resource includes the video, a quiz, research suggestions, and a discussion prompt

Cons

• None