Invest in the Midwest: Narrative

Big Idea and Takeaway:

Our Big Ideas is Invest in the Midwest. The main thing we want our students to gain
from this unit is that the Midwestern region, known as Americas Heartland, provides many
products for the U.S, so we need to care for its resources.

Assumptions:
This fourth grade unit about the Midwest is a unit within a larger unit on U.S. regions.
Throughout the larger unit, the students have learned that the U.S. can be divided into regions
in different ways. Each region unit will contain each thread of Social Studies, but will have a
strong emphasis on one of the threads. When we start this Midwestern unit, the students will
have already studied the Northeastern and Southeastern regions. In the Northeastern region, the
focus will be civics, and in the Southeastern region unit the focus will be history. We will have
already learned about the geography, history, culture, and economy of those regions.
Throughout the larger U.S. Regions unit, we will be filling in a large U.S. map with the
resources that are located in each region. Because the students have already had the unit on the
Northeast region that focused on history, they have already learned to distinguish between
primary and secondary sources. The students have previously learned about producers and
consumers.

Lesson 1: If you wanna learn about the Heartland, sing it!

This lesson serves as an introduction to the Midwestern region of the U.S. As an
inquiry based learning lesson, the students will be working individually to figure out which
states belong to the Midwest, and then working cooperatively to try to define characteristics of

Midwestern states. The class will come to a conclusion as to which states belong to the
Midwest, and the teacher will give a brief presentation on the Midwest - the major cities,
landmarks, and landforms. At the end, students will be invited to participate in singing a song
about these Midwestern states. This lesson guides students in learning some of the unique
features of this region.

Lesson 2: What the years have yielded

Since we learned in the first lesson that the Midwest is Americas Heartland and a
farming hub, we will now learn about the history of Midwestern farming. Students will review
the difference between primary and secondary resources as they read and listen to excerpts
about farmers experiences over time. Students will consider how farming technologies have
changed from when the Native Americans were the only inhabitants to the present day (e.g.
bison scapula hoes to current seeder machines). Students will fill in a Chain of Events
worksheet for the John Herbert Quick excerpt and write a list of changes in farming
technologies for the Orion Samuelson audio clips. After each of these activities, students will
pair share their results before whole class discussion time. Throughout the lesson, teachers will
use effective questioning to help students consider the changes in farming over time and their
effect on how we work with resources. To conclude, students will complete and exit slip in
which they identify which of three sources we used were primary and which were secondary.
They will also name one change in farming that they learned about from the sources and
explain whether they think the change was positive, negative, or both.

Lesson 3: Great lakes, great people

Now that we have learned about the history of the region, we will dig deeper into the
people who have lived here, how they have used the available resources, and how they have
shaped the regions culture. Having sent out and received back ancestry surveys from each
student, the teacher will employ the jigsaw method. On the first day of this lesson, the teacher
will group the students and have each group research the way of life and impact of different
ancestral groups in the Midwestern region, being sure to focus on ancestral groups that are
represented in the students backgrounds. The students will be asked to identify where the
immigrant group lived, what jobs they had, how they used their resources, and what aspects of
their culture we still see today. On the second day, the students will present their findings to
their classmates, who write down the information gleaned. The teacher will then present a
powerpoint about Midwestern culture, and the students will do a quick-write comparing the
culture of the Midwest to the culture of the Northeast and Southeast.

Lesson 4: Oh where are the resources?

Students will begin this geography lesson with an inquiry-based activity where they
must draw or write in where they think natural resources are located on a map of the Midwest.
We will then refer back to the large resource map of the U.S. that we have been adding to over
the course of the larger U.S. Regions unit, and students will glue pictures of the Midwestern
resources in the appropriate locations. We will describe the types of jobs that are available in
the Midwest and then students will create advertisements or job postings for Midwestern
resources and jobs. The class will then do a gallery walk so students can see their peers
creative advertisements and job postings. For homework and real-world application, students
will interview an adult about their job and ask how natural resources play a role in the

interviewees work. This lesson will include an ELA crossover, as students will be required to
write a reflection on what they have learned from the interview and how it has affected their
opinions about the kind of job they would like to have someday.

Lesson 5: Whats to gain from those amber waves of grain?

Now that we know more about the resources that are in the Midwest, its time to look at
how these resources get turned into products that are used around the U.S. In groups, the
students will select a product thats produced from Midwestern resources and research how
that item goes from natural resource to finished product. The students will then be asked to
think about how these products are transported around the U.S., and the teacher will guide
them to realize that the Great Lakes and the large Midwestern rivers provide a unique way to
transport goods. We will then enter a simulation by telling the students that they need blue
crayons to draw the Great Lakes, but we only have a few available. This will provide a way for
students to experience supply, demand, scarcity, and substitute goods. Once these concepts
have been explored, the students will then participate in a cross-the-line activity. The teacher
will read a scenario about a Midwestern resource, and the students will move to stand on one
side of the line or another to show how they think the price, cost, supply, and/or demand of the
product will be affected. The students will then be asked to create their own scenarios that
would affect price, cost, supply, and/or demand.

Lesson 6: Economists, assemble!

In our first economy lesson, we learned about how availability of resources affects the
cost and price of products. In this lesson, we will do a simulation comparing the traditional
production method and the assembly line production method in order to experience how

production process also affects the cost of a product. The students will engage in an authentic
activity because they will be making care packages for the homeless. This lesson will include a
math crossover in which students must fill out a worksheet to calculate the cost of producing
their care packages and determine which production process yields a greater profit. At the end
of the simulation, the class will critique the two different production methods, define
specialization, and pair share about how production efficiency affects production cost and
consumer cost. The students will watch a video about how Henry Ford perfected the assembly
line in Michigan. Last, students will complete an exit slip, giving an answer to the question,
How does the cost of production change when you produce goods using an assembly line?

Lesson 7: Cultivating caring citizens

After learning about where Midwestern resources are located and how they are
processed into products, this lesson will help students learn how to initiate change in their
communities to ensure that we use these resources wisely. At the beginning of the school day,
we will announce a new classroom law stating that nothing can be thrown away, only recycled
or reused. Students must carry out this zero-waste law simulation until Social Studies in the
afternoon. At the start of Social Studies, we will gather to discuss how the simulation went, to
brainstorm environmental laws that students already know about, and to consider what would
happen if their were no laws regarding resources in place. Students will then work with
partners to invent a new law that will regulate the use of a particular Midwestern resource. We
will gather as a class to share our suggestions for laws and vote on which law we would like to
propose. For homework and another ELA crossover, students will write persuasive letters to a
local congressman about the benefits of enacting our favored law.

Lesson 8: Its harvest time!

In our final, summarizing lesson, the students will be assessed on what they have
learned. The students will pick a slip of paper that will assign them to a group with a certain
role for the day. Roles will include corn farmer, automobile manufacturer, lumberjack, steel
worker, and consumer. The teacher will announce that the Great Lakes have mysteriously
disappeared. Students must then decide how this will affect them in their given roles. As
producers, how will the production processes and costs change? As consumers, how will prices
and buying choices change? The students will work together to produce an audio recording of
an interview between a radio DJ and someone from their industry discussing these questions.
This will help the students see how all the threads we have talked about affect each other, and
the way that the economy is affected by the presence or absence of natural resources.