Overview:

During the 1980s Garden City was the fastest growing community in the state of Kansas. This lesson presents an informative correlation of water resources, changing crops, beef packing plants, and the surging population migration in and around Garden City, Kansas.

Grade Levels: 4 - 6

Time Needed: 2 or 3 class periods

Geographic Themes:

Location, Human-Environment Interaction, Movement, Place, Region

 

Social Studies Standards for Benchmarks, Grade Levels 8-K:

• The student will understand the connections among people, places, and environments in the local school and community, Kansas, the United States, and different nations in the world.
• The student will understand the effects of economics, science, and technology in the local school and community, Kansas, the United States, and different nations in the world.

National Geographic Standards:

#1	The geographically informed person knows and understands how to use maps and other geographic representations, tools and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective.
#6	The geographically informed person knows and understands how culture and experience influence people's perception of places and regions.
#9	The geographically informed person knows and understands the characteristics, distribution, and migration of human populations on the Earth's surface.
#15	The geographically informed person knows and understands how physical systems affect human systems.
#17	The geographically informed person knows and understands how to apply geography to interpret the past.

Outcome:

To analyze the elements involved in the changes of the Garden City, Kansas, area during the 1960's - 1980's.

 

Performance Objective:

1. The student will help his/her group construct a large time-line for Garden City, Kansas, for the years 1960-1990.
2. The student will illustrate using a Venn diagram the changes of the 1950s Garden City and the 1980s Garden City.

Vocabulary (see Glossary):

Immigration Center pivot irrigation Bilingual Ogallala Aquifer Ethnic groups

ESL (English as a Second Language) County seat Anglo Hispanic Asian

Materials Needed:

Butcher paper (white) Typing paper Markers or crayons Picture wire Clothes pins

Venn Diagram outline Map of Kansas Stapler Calculator

Procedures:

1. Use Kansas maps to locate Garden City and Finney County (about 250 miles west of Wichita). Find the distance from our city to Garden City. Compare the population of Garden city and your city.
2. Discuss the scope and consequences of the changes of lifestyles of the residents and migrants in the Garden City area.
3. Read "Changing Ethnic Relations." Provide listening objective.
4. Give each student a Venn diagram outline, and let him/her fill in the before and after facts about Garden City's people, jobs, agriculture, schools, water supply, sewers, cultural changes, etc.
5. Divide the class into three or four groups; then, assign each group a portion of the 1950's - 1990's pictorial time-line to complete. The time-line should include population numbers and pictures by race and origin, as well as hand-drawn pictures of a center-pivot irrigation system, cornfields, cattle feedlots, beef packing plants, number of new churches, schools houses and mobile home parks, water sources, new roads, and many other possibilities. (Note: The time-line mural is much neater and easier to manage if things are first drawn on typing paper, then colored, cut out, and glued onto the large butcher paper. A picture wire held up by tacks will support the murals as it is clothes pinned or stapled up for display.)

Assessment:

1. Note student's understanding as each explains his/her contributions to the time line.
2. Observe as students present the Venn diagram for comprehension of the transformation of Garden city from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Extensions:

The student could present the mural of Garden City to other classes, or display it in the library at school. Students could graph the populations of Garden City by races and origins in their math class.

Resources:

• Broadway, M. J. (1985). The characteristics of Southeast Asian refugees residing in Garden City, Kansas. The Kansas Geographer, 19, 5-l8.
• Kansas Water Office. (1991). Kansas irrigation water use report. Topeka, KS: Author.
• Stull, D. D. (1990). I come to the Garden: Changing ethnic relations in Garden City, Kansas [Abstract]. Urban Anthropology, Report to the Ford Foundation, 19(4). (Essential background reading material for the teacher.)
• U. S. Bureau of the Census. (1990). 1990 census of population and housing. Author.

Examining Garden City's Growth (part2)

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