Sam Warren

10/3/13
History 7
5
th
Period
Modification and Adaptation

Modifications & Adaptations

Section 1- Introduction

A strip of white, grainy sand surrounds a sheet of green trees like a wrapper
surrounds a piece of bubble gum. The ubiquitous trees look like giant green
lollipops with leaves. The stalks of the trees are like giant brown red vines, and the
bark twisting and turning like a funnel cake. The grains of sand on the beach are like
tiny salty crystals, rich, pure and very clear. Walking on the sand is like sauntering
on a cloud, soft, fluffy, and heavenly, but burning like a pizza that just came out of
the oven. And the clouds, they look like floating mounds of powdered sugar, waiting
to be put on a fresh deep fried Twinkie at the county fair. The gentle super salty sea
softly beats against the beach, like the soft melodies of an acapella group. The
saccharine smelling aromas of peaches and kiwis can be smelled from afar,
attracting the buzzing humming birds to extract sweet, sweet nectar from the
tropical plants. The humidity of the island attracts bugs such as mosquitoes like a
McDonalds on a freeway attracts hungry people. This tropical island is filled with
palm trees, tropical fruits, and coconuts and more. Overall, this place is a fine place
to live in.

In this favorable geographic environment that the civilization of Samoa will
be founded. It is a civilization whose design takes its inspiration from the study of
past civilizations such as the Arabs, the Aztecs, the Greeks, the Mayans, the
Mesopotamians, and the Romans among others. This book will document the
necessary steps to take in order to create a successful civilization.
Human Changes to the land

Part I- Analysis of the Problem

The first step in building a successful civilization is to secure basic human
need such as food and water. Due to its geography, the major challenges of Samoa
faces in achieving basic food and water supply include the following:

1. A tropical island is not such a great place to live. The sand of beaches
is almost impossible to grow things on, and growing in the jungle just give
animals a free snack. And how are you going to get fresh water? There is
most likely no place to get fresh water. The ocean surrounds the islands, and
nobody enjoys a fresh glass of salty, dirty, sour ocean water. And without
fresh water, the newly formed colony will soon be extinct.

2. The new civilization might be going great, peachy even. Until your
first night and everybody is starving to death. The sandy ground of Samoa is
non-fertile and is hard to grow on. And the only other way to find food is by
hunting, on land and by sea. The Samoans need to find a way to hunt down
the animals that live in the trees, and the fish of the deep. And if that doesnt
happen, the tropical civilization will perish instantly.

Part II- Proposed Solutions

The civilization of Samoa needs to find a way to solve their problems using
adaptations and modifications. Adaptations are when living things evolve and
become better suited to live in their environment. Environmental modifications are
when you change your environment to help the people with the living conditions.
These two things play the role of the helper by changing the way that people live so
they are better suited to their environment.

The people of Samoa need to find a way to get water. They are
surrounded by salt water and cannot drink it. The people of Samoa will build
twin pipes and irrigation systems like the Aztecs. As stated by Frey, The
(The Aztec) city boasted other technological marvels, like the aqueduct that
carried fresh water for irrigation. Twin pipes ran from the Chapultepec
springs, three miles away (275). First, the Samoans will need to cut down
trees and cut pipes out of the trees so they can transport the water. Second,
the Samoans need to cut down more trees so they can build buckets to catch
fresh rainwater. Third, the Samoan people need to dig trenches so they lay
the pipes underground so they dont get stepped on and broken or thrashed
by animals. Fourth, the Samoans need to connect the pipes to the buckets so
they can transport water. And finally, the Samoan people need to build pools
made of rocks near there civilization and connect the pipes to the pools so
they dont need to go all the way to the to all of the buckets around the island
to get fresh water. Building these buckets and pipes will solve the problem of
a fresh water source.

The people of Samoa also need to find a way to get food. Between the
giant jungle with creeping critters stalking for prey across the forest floor, to
the harsh sandy soil of the coast beaches, the Samoans have no place to farm.
Like the Aztecs, the Samoan people will build chanampas (floating gardens).
As stated by Frey, In this way they created small islands called chanampas,
or Floating Gardens (274). First, the Samoans will cut down trees and make
them into logs, for the bottoms of the chanampas. Second, the people of
Samoa will cut down more trees to make the walls of the chanampas. Third,
the Samoan people will take soil from the jungle and load it into the
chanampas. Fourth, the Samoans will grow tropical fruits such as mangos,
peaches, and bananas. Finally, the Samoans will trade with other places to get
other seeds and food using boats made out of palm wood. Building the
chanampas will solve the Samoans problems of being able to grow food on a
good surface.