Idaho Social Studies 9-12.US2.12
The Standard
Analyze the impact of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl on farmers, businesses, workers, and racial and ethnic minorities.
Idaho Content Standards: K-12 Social Studies · The Great Depression and the New Deal 1929-1939
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students trace how unemployment, falling sales, and farm failures affected workers, businesses, and farmers. They explain why Dust Bowl conditions drove some Great Plains families to move and how discrimination made the crisis worse for Black and Mexican American communities.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can explain how lost wages cut store sales and led to more layoffs. They can use evidence to explain why farm families moved and why Black and Mexican American families faced added barriers.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think the Dust Bowl caused the whole Depression or that dust storms hit every state. They may assume everyone faced the same hardships, overlooking job discrimination and the removal of U.S. citizens of Mexican descent.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Explain one effect of a factory closing on workers and one effect of the Dust Bowl on farmers. Then name one added barrier faced by Black or Mexican American families.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Lay tracing paper over a 1930s drought map, shade the hardest-hit Great Plains counties, and trace one likely migration route to California.
Read a Mexican repatriation account and a Black worker's oral history, then ask, 'Which hardships came from the economy, and which came from discrimination?'
Play cause-and-effect match with cards labeled bank failure, store closure, factory layoff, drought, crop loss, and farm migration; defend two chains.
Compare a grocery receipt with a sample household budget after a job loss; explain why a local store might sell less.
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Related Standards
- 6-12.US1.32
Analyze the communication, industrial and agricultural changes and their impact on the social and economic lives of people in the North, South, and West.
- 9-12.US2.11
Analyze the causes of the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.
- 9-12.US2.20
Analyze the impact of events and policies on the Homefront during World War Two.
- 9-12.US2.13
Evaluate the effectiveness of New Deal programs in addressing economic issues underlying the Great Depression.
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