This study unit is based firstly around the "Escape the Room" activity, and secondly the Time Machine Journey to Renaissance Florence (below) which comes complete with a Student Workpack and Teacher Answers. It is also strongly recommended that you end this unit with the whole-school, cross-curricular "Renaissance Day" which is outlined in detail here.

A. What was the Renaissance?

Escape Room: "Mission: Galileo 1610"

"It is 1610. the Renaissance ('Rebirth') of arts and sciences has transformed Europe. You are students of the great scientist galileo in Padua, Italy. You have all been put in jail by the church for insisting that the earth goes round the sun! You will all taken away to be executed in 45 minutes - unless you can find the key to escape! The location of the key is provided in the coded message in the middle of the room".

What was the Renaissance?

An introductory worksheet to get students thinking about Renaissance changes the arts and the sciences.

Picture Analysis: What is the message of 'The Ambassadors'? [Interactive]

A challenging lesson, but students often get a great deal from it, especially if they have some understanding of the Reformation by this point.

A Time Machine Journey to Renaissance Florence | Introductory PowerPoint | Student Workpack | Teacher Answers | Factual Test for Students

Note: this replaces an older version of the game that can still be found here.

A major multimedia simulation which can be played over several hours to provide students with a thorough grounding in the major personalities, events and developments in Renaissance Florence. In this simulation, your mission is to meet the artist Leonardo da Vinci, obtain his famous painting the Mona Lisa, and then bring it to Lorenzo the Magnificent, the most powerful man in Florence.This may sound simple, but he will only give you the painting in return for an object he wants. And to get hold of this, you will need to make lots of trades along the way by speaking to many famous Renaissance figures. As you journey around the landscape of Renaissance Florence, complete the tasks in the workpack. This will help you build a map of the city, locate the main characters you need to interact with, and to obtain the objects and knowledge you need to complete the mission successfully.

B. Why did the Renaissance Happen? - The Siege of Constantinople

The Siege of Constantinople

Introductory Worksheet
Main Task: Interactive Running Dictation Exercise

Additional Materials: Pictures of the Siege
Perhaps the main reason why the Renaissance took off in Italy - this activity gets the narrative across in an engaging way. Students are given an interactive "news feed" of events, then can choose to produce EITHER a biased news report in Publisher OR a radio broadcast using their microphone OR a television newsflash using Moviemaker. Each of these tasks is progressively more challenging and they can be graded accordingly.

C. Who were some of the greatest figures of Renaissance Florence?

Video and Worksheet (30m)

A worksheet to accompany an excellent video documentary on this topic (ideal as a homework activity; link to video provided within the worksheet).

D. Why did the Renaissance End? - The Sack of Rome

The Sack Of Rome

A paper based running dictation exercise working on the same basis as the Siege of Constantinople exericse.

E. Revision / End of Unit Quizzes

The Renaissance: End of unit self-marking factual test

This is a great way to test knowledge at the end of the topic. Each student in the class is given 30 randomly selected questions from a database in mutliple-choice format. At the end of the exercise, the teacher can access all the scores at once to put into the markbook.

The Era of the Renaissance - Fling the Teacher Quiz

KeyWord Challenge - The Renaissance

If you are unfamiliar with the format of the game, click here for instructions.