US History/Napp
From Sea to Shining Sea: More Geography
Name: _________________
Examine the maps below. Then answer the questions that follow.
[Activity adapted from homelandsecurity.org]
1- Where are the Appalachian Mountains?
2- Which states border the Great Lakes?
3- If your family were driving from your home to the Mississippi River, in which
direction would you travel?
4- Which states would you travel through?
5- Imagine taking a car trip from your home to see the Rocky Mountains. In which
direction would you travel?
6- What geographic features would you see along the way?
7- What types of temperatures would you experience in Death Valley National Park in
California’s Mojave Desert?
8- Cite two geographic differences between Washington state and Florida.
9- Cite two geographic differences between Texas and Maine.
10- Identify four rivers in the United States.
11- What states border New York?
12- What bodies of water border the United States?
13- What countries border the United States?
14- Identify three different geographic features in the United States.
15- Identify four states in the South.
16- Identify two states in the Southwest.
Adapted from coreknowledge.org
Analyze the following images to gain historical and geographical insights.
[Adapted from Library of Congress]
A Pioneer settler of the “Old West”
 Man standing holding two horses on farmstead with a sod house and barn. Also
visible are a hay rack, buggy, dog, and another horse hitched to a sledge. Not
identified, likely in North Dakota.
 This Photo contains many aspects of Great Plains life: sod house, horses, buggies, and
the flat, wide landscape.
The little old sod shanty on the claim: taken about 1897.
 Sod house with wooden lean-to entry; one window and stovepipe visible. Vegetation is
growing on sod roof. Stave barrel, wash tub and box by house.
 Location unknown, likely northeastern North Dakota.
 This photo shows the sod “bricks” that were used to make the houses. It also shows
that there was a limited amount of wood that was available and used.
Is a picture worth a thousand words? What have you learned about the Great Plains
from analyzing the images?
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Reading: Excerpted from library.ndsu.edu
“The Great Plains! The words alone create a sense of space and a feeling of destiny – a
challenge. But what exactly is this special part of Western America that contains so much
of our history? How did it come to be? Why is it different?
Geographically, the Great Plains is an immense sweep of country; it reaches from
Mexico far north into Canada and spreads out east of the Rocky Mountains like a huge
welcome mat. So often maligned as a drab, featureless area, the Great Plains is in fact a
land of marked contrasts and limitless variety: canyons carved into solid rock of sand
and land by the waters of the Pecos and the Rio Grande; the seemingly endless grain
fields of Kansas; the desolation of the Badlands; the beauty of the Black Hills.
Before it was broken by the plow, most of the Great Plains from the Texas panhandle
northward was treeless grassland. Trees grew only along the floodplains of streams and
on the few mountain masses of the northern Great Plains. These lush prairies once were
the grazing ground for immense herds of bison, and the land provided a bountiful life for
those Indians who followed the herds. South of the grasslands, in Texas, shrubs mixed
with the grasses: creosote bush along the valley of the Pecos River; mesquite, oak, and
juniper to the east.
The general lack of trees suggests that this is a land of little moisture, as indeed it is.
Nearly all of the Great Plains receives less than 24 inches of rainfall a year, and most of it
receives less than 16 inches. This dryness and the strength of sunshine in this area, which
lies mostly between 2,000 and 6,000 feet above sea level, create the semiarid environment
that typifies the Great Plains...
For more than half a century after Lewis and Clark crossed the country in 1805-6, the
Great Plains was the testing ground of frontier America – here America grew to
maturity.”
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123-
Create three questions for this reading. The first two questions may be recall
questions where the reader is merely asked to repeat information from the passage.
However, the third question must require higher level thinking skills to answer it.
1. Which city is paired with the
geographical feature that directly
contributed to its growth?
A. San Francisco – Rocky
Mountains
B. New Orleans – Mississippi River
C. Pittsburgh – Hudson River
D. Cleveland – Atlantic Coastal
Plain
2. Which geographic advantage did
the United States gain by
purchasing the Louisiana Territory
from France in 1803?
A. warm-water ports on the
Atlantic coast
B. rich fishing areas in the Great
Lakes
C. full control of the Mississippi
River
D. vast coal reserves in the region
west of Pennsylvania
3. Which region of the United States is
correctly paired with an industry
that is dominant in that region?
A. Southwest — timber
B. Pacific Northwest — citrus crops
C. Great Plains — grain crops
D. Atlantic Coastal Plain — iron
mining
4. In the United States, regional
differences in economic
development are primarily due to
A. settlement patterns of immigrant
groups
B. pressure from various religious
groups
C. state and federal election laws
D. geographic factors in various
parts of the nation
5. Because of fertile land and a long
growing season, plantations in the
thirteen colonies developed in
A. New England
B. the Middle Atlantic region
C. the South
D. the upper Mississippi River
valley
6. Acquiring New Orleans as part of
the Louisiana Purchase was
considered important to the
development of the Mississippi and
Ohio River valleys because the city
A. provided protection from attacks
by the Spanish
B. provided migrant workers for
river valley farms
C. served as a port for American
agricultural goods
D. served as the cultural center for
the nation
7. During the first half of the 1800s,
geographic factors influenced the
economy of New England by
A. encouraging the establishment of
large plantations
B. promoting the growth of trade
and manufacturing
C. increasing the region’s reliance
on slave labor
D. supporting rice and indigo
farming
8. Farmers in the Ohio River valley
gained the greatest economic benefit
when the United States acquired the
A. Oregon Territory
B. Gadsden Purchase
C. Louisiana Territory
D. Mexican Cession