Georgia SS8H8.b
The Standard
Explain economic factors that resulted in the Great Depression. (e.g., boll weevil and drought).
Georgia Standards of Excellence for Social Studies · Analyze Georgia's participation in important events that occurred from World War I through the Great Depression.
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain how Georgia's dependence on cotton made its economy fragile. They connect boll weevil damage, drought, falling crop income, debt, bank failures, and reduced spending.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students can build a clear cause-and-effect chain from farm problems to wider economic hardship. They use evidence to explain why Georgia suffered before and during the national downturn.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may treat the stock market crash as the only cause. They may confuse the boll weevil with a disease or assume drought affected only farmers, not banks and businesses.
How to Assess It
- Give students four terms: drought, cotton losses, unpaid loans, and bank failures. Ask them to arrange the terms and explain the chain in two sentences.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give groups cotton, debt, price, and weather cards, then have them build a cause-and-effect chain showing how one farm could fail.
Ask students to write: How could a damaged cotton crop cause a town store or bank to close?
Play a chain-reaction game where students match Georgia farm problems with effects on workers, stores, banks, and families.
Use a mock family budget to show how falling cotton income changes spending on food, clothing, loan payments, and farm supplies.
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Related Standards
- SS5H3.a
Discuss the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, the Dust Bowl, and soup kitchens.
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- SS5H3
Explain how the Great Depression and New Deal affected the lives of millions of Americans.
- SS6E3
Describe factors that influence economic growth and examine their presence or absence in Brazil, Cuba, and Mexico.
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