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Grade 5 Social Studies · World 4: Hard Times · Level 36
The Dust Bowl
Explain its causes and effects with a map.
Warm-up, learn, try it together, practice, then a quick check. About 15 minutes.
What children learn in Level 36
- As if the Depression weren't enough, nature struck too. In the 1930s, a long drought hit the Great Plains.
- For years, farmers had plowed up the deep-rooted grasses to plant wheat. Those grasses had held the soil in place. Without rain, the bare soil turned to powder.
- Strong storms lifted the dirt into black clouds. Dust buried fences and crept into homes. People hung wet sheets over windows. This area became known as the Dust Bowl.
- Crops died, and many families lost their farms. Millions of people left the Plains. Many packed up and headed west to California, hoping for work picking fruit. They found low pay and unfriendly towns.
- Over time, the government taught farmers to protect the soil, with new ways of plowing and long rows of trees to slow the blowing dust.
Georgia Standards of Excellence in Social Studies:
- SS5H3.a — Discuss the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, the Dust Bowl, and soup kitchens.