Alabama Social Studies SS24.5.11b
The Standard
- SS24.5.11
- Describe how the United States’ economy grew and American culture changed after World War II.
Describe the decline of farming and the growth of urban areas in Alabama after World War II.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain how tractors and other machines reduced the need for farm workers in Alabama. They connect that change to the growth of city jobs after World War II, including steel work in Birmingham and rocket work in Huntsville.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can explain why fewer people worked on farms even though Alabama still grew crops. They can name a growing city and a job that drew people there.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think fewer farm workers means farming stopped. They may also assume everyone who left a farm moved out of Alabama, rather than to a city within the state.
How to Assess It
- Ask students: “Why did fewer Alabamians work on farms after the war, and why did cities such as Huntsville grow?” Look for one reason for each change.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Place farm, tractor, factory, and rocket-job cards on an Alabama map; have students move worker counters from farms toward Birmingham and Huntsville.
Ask students to write: “How could a farm grow crops with fewer workers, and where might those workers find jobs?”
Play a cause-and-effect match with cards showing tractors, fewer farm jobs, new city jobs, and growing neighborhoods.
Give students Huntsville population figures from the 1950 and 1970 censuses; have them calculate the change and connect it to rocket jobs.
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Printable SS24.5.11b Worksheet
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Related Standards
- SS24.4.16a
Describe how industry, trade, farming, and the rise of Populism changed Alabama after the Civil War and shaped its economy and communities in the late 1800s.
- SS24.5.1c
Outline reasons for the growth of urban areas at the turn of the twentieth century, including Birmingham.
- SS24.4.12
Explain how the growth of the United States from 1812 to 1860 changed economic and social life in Alabama.
- SS24.AS.23
Describe the impact of World War I and World War II on industrialization and urbanization in Alabama.
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