Should We Go West?

Use opportunity cost to weigh a family's choice to move.

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

What children learn in Level 46

Imagine a family in Ohio in the 1840s. They've heard about rich, cheap land out west. Should they go?
Every choice has a cost. If they go, they give up their home, friends, and a safe life. If they stay, they give up the chance at new land.
The next-best thing you give up is called the opportunity cost. It's not the price. It's what you could have had instead.
People went for many reasons: cheap land, gold, a fresh start, or freedom to worship in peace. The Latter-day Saints, for example, moved to Utah to escape attacks. Some Americans believed the country was meant to stretch from sea to sea.
But settlers' choices had a cost for others too. The land they wanted was already home to American Indian nations and Mexican families. We'll look at all sides.

Georgia Standards of Excellence in Social Studies:

SS4E1.a — Describe opportunity cost and its relationship to decision-making across time (e.g., decisions to settle in the west).