Guns, Germs, and Steel Lesson Plan

What were some of the advantages of the Fertile Crescent that led to the development of farming? Give some examples of ways farmers found success by going with the obvious, most convenient choice of plant. Given the meaning often ascribed in modern society to the phrase "path of least resistance," and the value ascribed to hard work, what lessons can the early farmers' successes teach us today?

Some advantages were the mild Mediterranean climate, the range of topographies, and climatic variation from season to season and year to year, which yielded a large variety of plant and animal species. For a population whose members lived in a time which required them to have a...