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For the Teacher
Learning Objectives -
Unit
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Describe the geography of California's Mother Lode region. |
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Identify and describe ways in which native Americans interacted with their Mother Lode environment. |
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Understand the impact of changing gold mining practices on the environment of the Mother Lode.
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Diagram and explain the movement of mercury through the environment from its use in mining to human consumption. |
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Examine how arsenic concentrations result from gold mining and how it impacts the environment. |
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Analyze the various factors that have contributed to changing the forest cover of the Mother Lode. |
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Examine how agricultural practices have changed over the last century and a half in the Mother Lode. |
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Describe changing demographic patterns in the Mother Lode |
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Related National Standards
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GIS Activities -
GIS assignments are an integral part of several of the lessons in this collection. Students will need access to either My World GIS, a software package designed for middle and secondary student use, or ArcGIS, a professional GIS software package.
The GIS files for this unit are available to download:
My World GIS |
ArcGIS |
-- available soon --
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El Dorado |
The data and images in the various map layers are from a variety of sources:
Layers
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Source
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California State &
County Level Data |
California state and county shape files including hydrological, land cover, and base map data from the Cal-Atlas Geospatial Clearinghouse. |
| Vegetation |
Historic photos of El Dorado County from the Wieslander Vegetation Type Maps & Photographs, University of California 2005.
Vegetation data for 1934 and 1945 from the Wieslander Vegetation Mapping Project, University of California, Berkeley, 2005.
Vegetation data from 1977 from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Historic CALVEG Project.
Contemporary data from the Cal-Atlas Geospatial Clearinghouse |
| Mining |
Mine data from USGS, Mineral Resources On-Line Spatial Data.
Principle Area of Mine Pollution data from the California Department of Conservation. |
| Agriculture |
Agricultural census data from 1997 from the USDA Census of Agriculture Historical Archive.
Data from earlier years from the Census of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. |
| El Dorado Hills Aerial Photos |
Stitched from USGS, Earth Explorer photos |
| Demographics |
Census related shape files and data from the Minnesota Population Center. National Historical Geographic Information System: Pre-release Version 0.1. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota 2004. |
| Land Use |
Historic land use data from the Farmland Mapping & Monitoring Program, California Department of Conservation |
| Basemaps |
World Street, World Image, and World Topographic basemaps from ArcGIS Resource Center. |
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Additional Resources -
Those interested in learning more will find that the Internet offers a variety of interesting materials.
Calisphere
- The 1848-1865: The Gold Rush Era section contains an extensive collection of materials on the Gold Rush in California
Library of Congress: American Memory Collection
Search the American Memory Collection for resources on the California gold rush .
For Further Reading
Students and teachers wishing to learn more about the impact of gold mining in California may want to read the following:
James J. Rawls and Richard J. Orsi, A Golden State: Mining and Economic Development in Gold Rush California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
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Contact -
Your comments and suggestion about these materials are more than welcome.
If you have ideas for additional topics that would lend themselves to the approach taken here, please pass them along. I'd enjoy collaborating with you.
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