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Cartoon about the California Gold Rush 1849

Van Valen's Gold Rush Journey -- encourages 6th - 8th graders to learn what life was like during the gold rush by investigating the journal of Alex Van Valen, a man who set sail in 1849 to stake his claim in the California gold fields. The website includes a rich set of primary sources to explore and analyze, an interactive guide where students can record, save and print their findings, as well as a teacher's guide.

In which John Green teaches you about the Mexican-American War in the late 1840s, and the expansion of the United States into the western end of North America. In this episode of Crash Course, US territory finally reaches from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific Ocean. After Oregon was secured from the UK and the southwest was ceded by Mexico, that is. Famous Americans abound in this episode, including James K Polk (Young Hickory, Napoleon of the Stump), Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, and Winfield Scott. You'll also learn about the California Gold Rush of 1848, and California's admission as a state, which necessitated the Compromise of 1850. Once more slavery is a crucial issue. Something is going to have to be done about slavery, I think. Maybe it will come to a head next week.

A valuable resource for studies into everyday life in C19th American West.

"California as I Saw It:" First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900 consists of the full texts and illustrations of 190 works documenting the formative era of California's history through eyewitness accounts. The collection covers the dramatic decades between the Gold Rush and the turn of the twentieth century.

VERY COOL video - one of my students actually shared it with me! I plan to use this with my AP Human Geography students! In my case I may use it as an opener to the class as to what types of things we will cover and the connectedness of everything. Also great for Industrialization, Globalization, etc!

I would like to encourage you to view or research some critiques of this material. After I viewed your post, I did some research and it looks like there is good criticism out there of this video that it portrays a one sided argument. I don't believe the video is wholly inaccurate. However, the video does present information that is easily questionable due to inaccurate and impartial interpretations. Part of our duty as great teachers it to present all facts and allow young citizens to use their own questioning to make informed decisions.

I don't disagree with you. You don't have to 'encourage me to research critiques'. Maybe I should have written more when I posted it, but I was in a rush and just bookmarked it typed quick comments. I actually had seen the critiques. However, the way in which it is made, and things included are great for use as discussion starters and prompts for fact finding. I didn't include my lesson plan or the way I personally plan to use it, as I felt that was not relevant. I think each person can decide on their own how to use it. I agree great teachers do have a job to teach studnets to critically question and analyze - something I do all the time with my students. It helps when there is compelling items like this video to garner their interest. One of the things my students look at during our time together is motivation, and bias. So when I show it, my students will also be looking at who funded the video, and follow that trail back to look at biases that the group/companies involved might have. Also, with the different portions, as you mention, it is one sided in areas, so again, part of my personal lesson plan with this is that as we reach various portions of class that correlate with the video, my studnets will be viewing that portion and doing their own addition of the other side of the story. And I use a strategy called "philosophical chairs" and portions of this video along iwth well constructed starter questions are great for utilization in that situation.