1. Raise your hand if you have moved from one house to another at some point in your life.
2. Find someone who has moved and ask them the following questions:
– Why did you move?
– Did you like the place you moved?
– How was it different from where you used to live?

• Content: Determine the most important reasons for Westward Expansion.
• Language: List the features of the Great
Plains.

• Pre Civil War it was viewed as a
“treeless wasteland”
• Features:
– Flatlands that rise gradually from east to west
– Land eroded by wind and water
– Low rainfall
– Frequent dust storms

• Now seen as a vast area for settlement and opportunity
– Land
• Homestead Act – citizens can acquire 160 acres of land as long as they pay a filing fee and live on the land for a minimum of 5 years. http://youtu.be/yxaJY8UZxn4?list=PL6813F8A8A1A97A4E
– Adventure
– Railroad
– Gold and Silver
– Escape from discrimina tion

• Western settlement was aided by new inventions and technologies
• There were a total of 8 adaptations and inventions that helped settlers to survive the harsh climate they are:
1. Railroads (most important reason for
Westward Expansion)

• Transcontinental Railroad
– Completed May 10, 1869.
– The last spike was driven at Promontory Point in Utah. It was called the Golden Spike.
– The Union Pacific (from the East) and the
Central Pacific (from the West) had laid over
1700 miles of track.
– Most important reason for Westward
Expansion
Story of US http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcAoIlyw9i0&feature=related

• Towns grew along the rail line
• Transported goods to cities and larger markets
• Increased demand for steel, coal and construction work

• Led to increase in farming and cattle ranching
• Established 4 time zones in 1883. Made official in 1918 by Congress.
– Story of US

• Content: Name the adaptations the settlers developed to survive in the Great
Plains.
• Language: Write a paragraph on the most important adaptation(s) western settlers made.

• Plant seeds deep into the ground where there was some moisture.
• Allows for crops in climates that seemed un-farmable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48H7zOQrX3U&safety_mode=t rue&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active

• By 1870’s the steel plow was invented that could break through the tough layers of sod.

• Farmers adopted an improved strain of
Russian wheat which required less water and grew well in the dryer soil of the Great Plains.

• Farmers could use windmills to pump water out from under the ground.

• Built using rectangles of grass and the part of the soil beneath it held together by the roots.
• It was a similar style to an igloo.
• They were very well insulated, but also very damp.

A Nebraska Sod House
Sodbusters- Name given to the plains farmers
Story of US

• In the early 1800s, cattle ranches began appearing on the Great Plains, especially in
Texas.
• Demand for beef was high, and as railroads developed, cowboys and vaqueros would drive the rancher’s cattle north to meet up with the rail lines.

Vaqueros and Cowboys

• Developed barbed wire to protect their land in r esponse to cattle herders.
• Story of US