For Educators

Lesson Plan 1
Immigrants

Grade Level:  3rd and 4th
 
Standards:            3.3 (1)              4.4 (3)

Objectives

  1. Learn about the value of photographs as primary source material
  2. Explore why and how people traveled to California in the 19th century
  3. Learn how and why people were photographed between 1850 and 1900
  4. Learn about how people’s names can sometimes provide clues about their family’s history
  5. Learn to locate on a map of the world the countries from where many of the Central California settlers immigrated since 1850
  6. Learn about several immigrant cultural communities that settled in California’s Central Valley
  7. Learn about the some of the challenges faced by those who immigrated to California between 1850 and 1900

 Materials

  1. Historic portrait photos
  2. Large map of the world
  3. Worksheet #1 and Worksheet #2
  4. Cameras
  5. Copies of the Foreign Miners’ License Tax Law
  6. Copies of  the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Activities

  1. Download 10 portrait photos taken between 1850 and 1900 and talk about what information they reveal about these individuals or families.  Talk about the types of portrait photographs taken between 1850 and 1900.  After discussing the photos, focus in on the cultural community of which each individual or family is a member.  Explore how names can sometimes indicate a family’s roots.
  2. Using a large map of the world, pinpoint from what part of the world these individuals or families immigrated and label them on the map.
  3. Break students up into groups and give each group two photos.  Ask each group to answer several questions about the person or group in each photo using Worksheet #1.
  4. Ask each group to then answer several questions about early photography using Worksheet #2.
  5. Ask students to talk with their own family members to learn about when they came to California, from what part of the world their family immigrated, and how they came.   Ask students to talk with their families about their family names.  Ask them to write a paragraph or page about their family.
  6. Ask students to select someone from their family or a group of family members to photograph.  Provide each student with access to a camera (cameras available at school, disposable ones, or allow them to use a camera to which they already have access) and ask them to photograph their subject. The image must in some way tell something about that person or group.
  7. Then, using the same map of the world, pinpoint from what part of the world students’ families originally immigrated and label them on the map.
  8. With students, mount and display these photographs as an exhibit at the school site.
  9. Explore the Foreign Miners’ License Tax Law of 1850 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and what these two laws meant to the Chinese.
  10. Invite an immigrant to class to share with students firsthand their story.
  11. Select two cultural communities in Fresno that have come to Fresno since 1900 (e.g., Sikhs, Hmongs) and with your class learn more about them (e.g., their traditions, their food, their costumes).
  12. Explore the issues regarding immigration today.

Worksheet # 1
Immigrants

From what country did this person or family immigrate?

What route did they probably take to get to California?

What language did they speak?

What clothing were they most likely wearing when they arrived?

What foods did they most likely enjoy eating?

What kind of job or work do you think the father of this family took on after they came to California?

Why do you think this person or family moved to Central California?

In what ways did they change as people in the first few months of their arrival to the Central California?

What contributions did this immigrant group make to the region?

Worksheet # 2
Photographs

Why do people take photographs?

What did people do before cameras were available?

If you wanted your photograph taken in 1880, how would you have done it?

What have photos looked like over the years?

What would you have done to prepare for getting your photo taken in 1880?

Lesson Plan 2
Immigration

Grade Level:  3rd

Standards:            3.3 (1) (3)

Objectives

  1. Learn the value of the census as primary source material
  2. Become familiar with Fresno County as it appears on a map of California and learn to locate communities within the County on the map
  3. Learn to read a census report
  4. Learn about the town of Millerton and who established it
  5. Explore some of the cultural communities that immigrated to California and settled in Millerton

Materials

  1. Map of California with the counties delineated
  2. Pages of the 1860 census for Fresno County
  3. Worksheet

Activities

  1. Show map of the county and locate the town of Millerton, Fresno County’s first county seat.  Talk about when Millerton was created and relate it to what else was going on in California at the time.
  2. Download pages of the 1860 census for each student.  Discuss what a census is, why the county prepared a census in 1860 and how a census is read.
  3. Looking at the census determine what information can be gleaned:  “What can we learn about Millerton from a census?”  Record the information on a chart or blackboard.
  4. What were most people doing?
  5. What types of businesses were in Millerton?
  6. What cultural communities populated the town?
  7. From what countries and what states in the United States did people come?
  8. How many men lived in Millerton?  How many women?  How many children?
  9. Ask students to complete Worksheet #1 which asks them to gather census information on their own family.
  10. Compile students’ family information.
  11. Develop with students conclusions based on the class census.
  12. Compare the class census with the census of Millerton.

 

Lesson Plan 3
California’s Central Valley:
How we shaped the Land

 Grade Level:  8th
 
Standards:            8.12 (1) (5)

Objectives

  1. Learn how California’s Central Valley was developed between 1850 and 1900
  2. Learn how the Valley was marketed to the rest of the world in the 19th century
  3. Discover what developments in the Valley (e.g., inventions, pioneering efforts) led to the development of  the Valley as an agricultural leader
  4. Explore how marketing affected immigration to the California’s Central Valley between 1850 and 1900
  5. Experience the process of thinking through and producing a 19th century promotional piece on the Valley
  6. Discover the value of ephemera as primary source material

 Materials

  1. Examples of 19th Century promotional pieces
  2. Access to the internet
  3. Central Valley history bibliography
  4. Materials for production of promotional pieces

 Activities

  1. Prepare students to produce a 19th century promotional publication on the Valley by downloading examples of 19th century promotional material and examining them.  Discuss what can be learned from the material.  Discuss how this material relates to the settlement of the West in the later part of the 19th century.
  2. Break students up into four groups and assign each group a piece of the Valley story:

    19th century railroad development

    The Colony Farm System

    Geology of the Valley (compare it with other fertile valleys in the world, early descriptions of the Valley, crops)

    19th century irrigation projects

  3. Instruct each group to research their topic and develop pages for the promotional book that include: 

    Maps

    Information on key people involved

    Primary source material

    Essays

    Quotes

    Photographs

    Artwork

  4. Ask each group to present their material to the rest of the class
  5. Compile all pages into one promotional piece on the Valley.
  6. Discuss who would most likely promote the Valley today, to whom and why?
  7. Invite a developer to talk with the class about how land is developed today.  Ask students to compare development in the Central Valley today with development 100 to 150 years ago.

Lesson Plan 4
Immigration

Grade Level:  3rd and 4th

Standards:     3.3 (1)              4.3 (2, 3)         4.4 (1, 3, 4)

Objectives

  1. Explore why and how people traveled to California in the 19th century
  2. Become familiar with the location of California’s Central Valley on a map and how 19th century immigrants accessed it by land and by sea
  3. Explore the everyday lives of some of California’s 19th century immigrants
  4. Learn about the many cultural communities that immigrated to California in the 19th century ---the challenges they faced, the contributions they made, where they settled
  5. Learn about the ingenuity and inventiveness in the 19th century that helped make farming in California’s Central Valley possible
  6. Learn about the value of scrapbooks as primary source material

 Materials

  1. Historic scrapbook pages
  2. Internet access
  3. Scrapbook pages (blank)
  4. Scrapbooking supplies

 Activities

  1. Down load pages from historic scrapbooks.

    Discuss with students what the pages tell about the person or family that put the scrapbook together, about the period of time when it was made, etc.

  2. Find someone you know who has a scrapbook (a parent, grandparent, friend, neighbor) and look through their scrapbook with them.
  3. Break the class into groups---set each group up to create a scrapbook that would have been made by a particular 19th Century California pioneer.

Examples:

  1. Someone living at Sutter’s Fort

    A 49er

    A family who immigrated from another country to a farm in the Valley

    Someone immigrating to California on a train

    Someone immigrating to California on a wagon train

    Chinese immigrant from China who worked on railroad in the 1870s and then settled in Fresno’s Chinatown

  2. Talk with students about the range of things a scrapbook might include:

    Clippings from newspapers

    Photos

    Poems

    Diary-like entries

    Hand-drawn pictures

    Maps

    Pressed leaves, flowers

    Objects of sentimental value (e.g., hair ribbon, medals, hair, piece of fabric, feather)

    Letters received from others

    Greeting cards

    Recipes

    Lists

  3. Instruct each group to:

    collect research on the individual whose scrapbook they are to make use that research to design their scrapbook----list the pages and the       content to be covered on each page

    assign each member of the group page(s) to produce including the cover

    assemble the scrapbook

    Ask each group to share their scrapbook with the rest of the class.  Use each scrapbook as a teaching tool to explore early California history.

Lesson Plan 5
Home Grown:
What food is produced in our own backyard?

Grade Level:  3rd

Standards:            3.5 (1) (2)

Objectives

  1. Become familiar with where the food we eat is produced
  2. Discover how much food is grown and processed in California’s Central Valley (e.g., Fresno County, Tulare County, Kings County, Kern County, Madera County)
  3. Discover the role that agriculture has played in the development of the Central Valley
  4. Learn to locate countries on a map of the world
  5. Learn to locate counties and communities on a map of California and the Central Valley
  6. Learn what an artifact is and what a collection is
  7. Experience putting together an exhibit

Materials

  1. Map of the world
  2. Map of California and the Central Valley
  3. A couple food items, one produced locally and one produced elsewhere

Activities

  1. Discuss with students the fact that the food they eat comes from many places in the world.  Talk with them about the fact that foods they buy prepackaged are often made of ingredients from places around the world.
  2. Ask students to search out at home from where one food they eat comes from.  Using one or two products, show students where to look on a package for that information and where to get the information if the food has no packaging.
  3. List students’ findings on a chart or blackboard.  Using a map of the world pinpoint and label their findings.
  4. Now begin to focus on locally grown food.  Using a map of California, talk about what “locally-grown” means.
  5. Ask students to search out five foods that are locally produced----looking in their own kitchens, at a friend’s or relatives house, on TV, in a newspaper or magazine ad, at the grocery store, at a bakery, at an ice cream store.  Ask students to list the five products and then bring to class an example of one.  They can bring a wrapper, a can, a box, an ad from a newspaper or magazine, etc.
  6. Examine and talk together about each child’s “find”.
  7. Download a map of the county and explore what is grown or produced and where.  Label the map.
  8. Help students take this “collection” ( of product labels, cans, boxes, ads, etc.) and create an exhibit out of it ---and exhibit of “Home Grown” food.  Include in the exhibit descriptions of each item and of “what we learned”.
  9. Explore what an artifact is and what a collection is.
  10. Invite one or two growers to class to talk about what they grow and what happens to it.
  11. Invite the school cook to come in and talk about what he or she uses that is home grown.
  12. List the advantages and disadvantages of purchasing food that is grown and processed locally.

 

A Land Between Rivers
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