SQ4R for GED…The Dust Bowl
Hola. I said I’d get back to you on how I used the SQ4R reading strategy to look at this article about the dust bowl: http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/depwwii/dustbowl/dustbowl.html
Here’s what I did….
1) Survey
First, I looked at the web page without reading it yet. It says “The Great Depression and World War II, 1929-1945″ at the top, so I know about what time it’s talking about. The page says “The Dust Bowl” and “Overview,” so it must tell basically what the Dust Bowl is. There’s a picture, and you can click on it to see better. it’s got some wagon wheels and a house, and it’s all sort of buried in some sand or dirt. The caption says “Results of a Dust Storm, Oklahoma, 1936.” So I’m getting the idea of where this is… Oklahoma, or sort of in the Midwest. And the year, 1936, gives me a more specific time, right in the middle of the years at the top of the page. And it talks about a dust storm, so I’m getting that “Dust Bowl” has to do with storms of dust… There’s more photographs and songs on the right. I just looked at the titles… “I’d Rather Not Be on Relief.” “Life in the Camps.” “On the Road.”
2) Question
Now, I ask some questions:
What is relief? What kinds of camps are they talking about? What caused the dust storms? What happened because of the dust storms? Did a lot of things get damaged? What exactly is the “dust bowl”? Is it a place or an event?
3) Read
I read the article next. Since it’s a web site, I took down some notes…
1930-1940.
Southwest Great Plains.
drought=no rain, no water.
Lots of people settled there to raise cattle (cows) and wheat. Plowed and planted (made farms.) What does this have to do with drought? Did the farms dry up?
“systematic destruction of prairie grasses” This is like something in science… when you hurt part of nature (an ecosystem), it changes other things. Farms destroyed grasses…then what? Did wildlife die?
Strong winds = devastating (very harmful)
Drought–1930. Land was dry, no grass, dirt blew away!!! Sky dark for days! Picture it. Covered houses.
Nineteen states = “dust bowl.” Farmers our of business, left, went west.
400,000 people left Great Plains. drought + “poor soil conservation” (not treating the soil right to keep it well for the future.)
4) Respond
Here’s what I responded to my questions:
What is relief? It doesn’t say in the article. I clicked on the link, and it’s about living with only the government help. I guess that’s what relief is… government help. Sounds terrible!
What kinds of camps are they talking about? The song helped with this on, too. People lived in camps when they couldn’t stay on their farms.
What caused the dust storms? The article talks about this. There were three things, I think. (1) bad ways of farming that killed grasses, (2) a natural period with no rain, and (3) lots of wind in the area.
What happened because of the dust storms? Farms were destroyed, people were out of work and poor. Lots of people moved west, and the government tried to help people.
Did a lot of things get damaged? Yes! Farms, mostly.
What exactly is the “dust bowl”? Is it a place or an event? It’s both a place and an event, I guess. Nineteen states in the center of the U.S. were turned into a “Dust Bowl”…really like a bowl of dust, where there were all kinds of dust storms… because of drought and how farmers treated the land.
5) Review
I looked back over it. I guess I want to know more about what life was like. Also, there’s a quote from a book about the dust bowl, and I wonder about that book by Steinbeck. Does it tell more about what happened to the people? Also, maybe I should look at all the pictures now that I understand more about what happened.
6) Reflect
I think it’s very sad that this happened. Farmers probably didn’t know that they were hurting the soil by killing so many of the grasses. In a way, it’s kind of like global warming, isn’t it? People start doing something and then they don’t realize it’s hurting the world until something bad happens. Then, it causes lots of problems!
So, did this help you study at all? I guess when I read this I got some information about science and about social science, so it’s all kind of related together, isn’t it? Maybe I should show Dwaynee this, too.