Florida SS.5.G.2.1

Social Studies5th GradePlaces and Regions

The Standard

Describe the push-pull factors (e.g., economy, natural hazards, tourism, climate, physical features) that influenced boundary changes within the United States.

Florida Next Generation Sunshine State Standards for Social Studies

Teacher's field guide

What This Standard Means

What Students Need to Do

Students compare historical maps to locate changes in national or regional borders. They connect economic opportunities, hazards, climate, tourism, and landforms to why people or governments wanted, left, or reorganized land.

What Mastery Looks Like

Given before-and-after maps, a student identifies the land affected and names a relevant push or pull factor. The student uses map or source evidence to explain how that factor contributed to the change.

Common Misconceptions

Students may reverse push and pull, or assume every factor affects people in the same way. They may think rivers or mountains changed borders by themselves, rather than leaders choosing those features as boundary lines.

How to Assess It

Exit ticket: Show before-and-after maps of the Louisiana Purchase. Ask, “What land changed hands, and which pull factor helped drive the change? Cite one map clue.”

Lesson moves

Ways to Teach It

  1. Students place factor cards on a floor map beside Louisiana Purchase, Texas, Oregon, and Mexican Cession regions, then explain each placement.

  2. Write: Which mattered more in westward boundary change, economic opportunity or physical geography? Use evidence from two maps.

  3. Play a push, pull, or neither card sort using examples such as drought, gold, warm climate, ports, mountains, and beaches.

  4. Compare local population and city-limit maps, then identify economic or physical factors that may explain annexation or boundary growth.

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