Alabama Social Studies SS24.5.7

SS24.5.7 is a cluster heading. These are the individual standards under it.

• SS24.5.7a

  Explain how the Great Depression impacted Alabamians and the nation, including increased labor tensions.

• SS24.5.7b

  Identify key characteristics of the Dust Bowl and the regions affected by it.

01

What Students Need to Do

Students explain how buying stocks with borrowed money and rising stock prices helped set up the 1929 crash. They describe how falling prices, job losses, and pay cuts affected people in Alabama and across the country, including strikes. They locate the Dust Bowl on the Great Plains and connect its dust storms to drought and exposed soil.

02

What Mastery Looks Like

A student puts risky stock buying before the crash and widespread job losses after it. They explain how lower cotton prices hurt Alabama farmers or how pay cuts led mill workers to strike. On a map, they mark the Dust Bowl region and explain why dry soil blew away.

03

Common Misconceptions

Students may think the Depression caused the stock market crash, rather than following it. They may place Alabama in the Dust Bowl or think dust storms caused every Alabama hardship. They may not see why workers facing pay cuts would strike.

04

How to Assess It

Ask on an exit ticket: “How did buying stocks with borrowed money add to the crash, what was one effect of the Depression in Alabama, and where and why did Dust Bowl storms occur?”

1. 01

   Give pairs event cards for stock loans, falling prices, selling shares, mill pay cuts, and strikes; have them build two cause-and-effect chains.

2. 02

   Read a short account of Alabama mill workers facing a pay cut; ask, “Why might they strike, and what might the owner say?”

3. 03

   Hand out a blank U.S. map; have teams shade affected parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, then label drought.

4. 04

   Use a pretend $10 loan to buy a stock; ask what the buyer still owes if the stock’s value falls to $5.

• SS24.US1.16b

  Describe the changes in American society that resulted from the inventions and innovations of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and inventors of the late ninetee...

• SS24.US2.3a

  Describe how the automobile, cinema, print media, and radio contributed to the rise in mass culture, economic growth, and expansion of the middle class during t...

• SS24.US2.4

  Analyze the causes of the Great Depression, including the effects of overproduction, stock market speculation, buying on credit, international trade policy, and...

• SS24.5.11

  Describe how the United States’ economy grew and American culture changed after World War II.