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Grade 5 Social Studies · World 2: Bigger, Better, Faster · Level 12
Why Drive Cattle?
Use rising beef prices to explain a price incentive.
Warm-up, learn, try it together, practice, then a quick check. About 15 minutes.
What children learn in Level 12
- Why walk cattle for months? Follow the money. Right after the Civil War, a longhorn was worth up to about 5 dollars in Texas.
- At a Kansas railroad town, that same animal could bring up to about 40 dollars. Same cow, far more money.
- That's a price incentive: a price that pushes people to act. The high Kansas price pushed ranchers to take on the risks of the trail.
- Prices work both ways. When a price goes up, sellers want to sell more. When it falls, they sell less. You'll see this again and again in history.
Georgia Standards of Excellence in Social Studies:
- SS5E1.b — Explain how price incentives affect people's behavior and choices (e.g., decisions to participate in cattle trails because of increased beef prices).