Last updated: September 22, 2023
Lesson Plan
Skills and Survival
- Grade Level:
- High School: Ninth Grade through Twelfth Grade
- Subject:
- Social Studies
- Lesson Duration:
- 60 Minutes
- Common Core Standards:
- 9-10.RH.2, 9-10.RH.3, 9-10.WHST.1
- Additional Standards:
- NCSS Standard 1.A.
NCSS Standard 2.E.
NCSS Standard 3.J.
NCSS Standard 4.A. - Thinking Skills:
- Remembering: Recalling or recognizing information ideas, and principles. Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts. Evaluating: Make informed judgements about the value of ideas or materials. Use standards and criteria to support opinions and views.
Essential Question
How do we learn the skills we need to survive?
What skills are necessary for survival?
Objective
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
• Describe how the Great Depression changed the lives of cowboys and ranchers during the Great Depression.
• Explain how learning new skills contributed to cowboy’s and rancher’s survival during the Great Depression.
• Give examples of important skills in their lives today and describe how learning new skills will be important to preparing for life after high school.
Background
Cowboy life changed immensely after the close of the Open Range Cattle Era in 1900. This era, lasting from 1865 to 1900, was characterized by ranchers allowing their cattle herds to roam free across public grasslands, from Texas to Montana. Many of the cowboys’ skills retained importance on ranches as this era ended, but the world around them was changing quickly.
Where they got their tools to do their work changed. They had relied on the skill of local craftsman like saddle makers and wheelwrights for their equipment. But by 1900, the nation’s growing railroad network was carrying factory made goods to the American West. These goods, which were cheaper and now easier to get, competed with local craftsmen. This was particularly true of blacksmiths. Cowboys had relied on blacksmiths to make the tools they needed for their work, including horseshoes and branding irons. The blacksmith’s skill lost importance, however, as cowboys now relied on ordering parts and equipment out of mail-order catalogues. The old-time blacksmith began to fade away.
In 1929, it was now the old-time cowboy who risked fading away. The Great Depression struck that year, and a sudden loss of money profoundly impacted people across the nation. At the height of the Depression, one in four Americans were without jobs and had no hope of finding work. This left them with little money to live on. Meeting basic needs suddenly became a struggle, and many suffered as they were forced to find ways to cope with the loss. Cowboys and cattle ranches did not escape the crisis. Cattle ranches were already in poor financial shape when the Depression hit. Severe droughts throughout the 1920s had killed their hay crops. But now beef prices plunged, forcing ranchers to sell off their cattle to make enough money to survive. Many ranches fell victim to foreclosure. Those that didn’t were left with little money to operate. For ranchers, that meant cutting costs and reducing manpower. For cowboys, that meant fewer jobs.
For more information about how the Great Depression affected Montana ranches, visit the Montana Historical Society to read Chapter 18 of their online text book: “The Great Depression Transforms Montana: 1929 – 1941.”
Cowboys had to change themselves to keep up with their changing world. To continue to be useful on a ranch, they turned to learning as a means of survival. They learned new skills, including carpentry and blacksmithing, so that they could fulfill more roles on the ranch. Rather than having to pay a carpenter or blacksmith, the rancher could just call the cowboy to fix a barn door or a bent gate hinge.
Learning new skills was especially important to keeping up with a changing world. With a need to save money by paying fewer workers, new technologies like tractors and threshing machines, which only needed a small crew to operate, gained popularity. Many cowboys learned to repair and operate these machines to continue being useful on a ranch, which made the difference in keeping their jobs – and their survival.
Preparation
•Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS Repair Shop Virtual Visit video
• Skills and Survival worksheet
Materials
Download Skills and Survival Student Worksheet
Lesson Hook/Preview
Introduction 5 minutes
• Invite students to share any special skills or talents they have. Then encourage discussion by asking: Why do you have that skill or talent? What makes it important to you?
• Like you, cowboys in the late 1800s also had a lot of skills that were important to them. You may have seen some of those skills in movies or at rodeos, like using a lasso to catch bulls. But after 1900, the world began to change around them. New technologies and life-changing events forced many cowboys to learn new skills and talents. Today, we’re going to talk about some of those new skills, and why learning them was so important after the end of the open range era.
Procedure
Video 28 minutes
Watch the Repair Shop Virtual Field Trip video found on the Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS website. This video is approximately 28 minutes long.
Student Activity 15 minutes
• Have students complete the Skills and Survival Worksheet. They may work independently or in groups.
• The first two questions ask students to reflect on and discuss the changing skills needed by cowboys after the close of the open range era and during the Great Depression. They also ask students to discuss how learning these new skills helped them survive these changes in their lives. The final question asks students to reflect on changes in their lives, and what skills they think they will need to cope with these changes.
Discussion and Analysis 5 to 10 minutes
• Invite the students to share their responses to the last question on the worksheet. Then lead students in brief discussion about their responses. You can use the following questions to encourage discussion: What skills do you think are important in our lives today? Why are they important? What changes do you see coming in our lives in the next 5 to 10 years? Do you think those changes will require us to learn new skills? If so, what skills do you think we will have to learn?
Vocabulary
Collins Dictionary definitions
• Blacksmith: A blacksmith is a person whose job is making things by hand out of metal that has been heated to a high temperature.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary definitions
• Cowboy: one who tends cattle or horses.
• Great Depression: the period of severe worldwide economic decline that began in 1929 and lasted throughout the 1930s and that was marked by deflation and widespread unemployment.
• Threshing Machine: a machine for separating grain crops into grain or seeds and straw.
Assessment Materials
Skills and Survival AssessmentThe student worksheet can be used for student assessment. The first two questions gauge student understanding of the lesson’s content. The third question can be used to assess students’ abilities to find personal connections to the lesson content and apply it to real world situations.
Enrichment Activities
Extension Activities
Research Project
Students will research how the Great Depression affected their local communities or families. Focusing questions for their research include:
• How did the Great Depression affect their lives?
• How did they learn to cope with the Depression?
• What changes did they have to make in their lives?
• What new skills, if any, did they have to learn? How did they learn them?
Students will then organize their research into a brief written or oral report. For their research, they may use oral histories from family members or friends who experienced the Depression. They may also use state or local historical societies. The Library of Congress and the National Archives also have extensive online collections available for research.
Library of Congress Great Depression and New Deal: A General Resource Guide.
Sam Houston State University’s Great Depression and New Deal: Primary Source Collections.
National Archives Great Depression Resources.
Doing Without
In this activity, students will make a list of ten objects that they use every day and that they consider important. Then, they will separate the objects into two categories: objects that cost money to use (for example, it costs money to use a cell phone) and objects that do not cost money to use (pens and paper, for example). Next, students can compare and contrast the objects in these two categories. Look for differences in age, materials, function, etc. Finally, invite the students to imagine themselves living in an economic depression. In a depression, their survival depends on them learning to spend as little money as possible. If they could not use any of their objects that cost money to use, how would that impact their life? What could they do or use in place of those objects? (For example, instead of relying on a cell phone for internet service, could they use a computer at a local library instead?)