Barriers and Gateways

Sort mountains, deserts, and wide rivers from passes, rivers, and the Erie Canal.

Warm-up, learn, try it together, practice, then a quick check. About 15 minutes.

What children learn in Level 43

From 1801 to 1861, Americans pushed west, and the land itself helped or stopped them. Anything that blocks the way is a barrier. Anything that opens the way is a gateway.
The Appalachian Mountains were the first barrier. But the Cumberland Gap, a natural pass, let wagons through into Kentucky and beyond. Rivers like the Ohio then carried settlers west.
Farther west, the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada stood high and snowy, and wide dry lands were hard to cross. South Pass, a low, wide way over the Rockies, became the gateway for wagon trains.
People could build gateways too. The Erie Canal, finished in 1825, ran 363 miles across New York, from Albany on the Hudson River to Buffalo on Lake Erie. Workers, many of them Irish immigrants, dug it by hand.
Now boats could go from New York City to the Great Lakes. Shipping became much faster and cheaper, towns sprang up along the way, and New York City became the nation's top port.

Georgia Standards of Excellence in Social Studies:

SS4G2.b — Describe physical barriers that hindered and physical gateways that benefited territorial expansion from 1801 to 1861.
SS4G1.b — Locate major man-made features of the United States: New York City, NY; Boston, MA; Philadelphia, PA; Washington, D.C.; Gettysburg, PA; and the Erie Canal.
MGS.7 — Map and Globe Skill 7: use a map to explain impact of geography on historical and current events (mastered in Grade 4)