Group+9+Quest

A WebQuest for 4th Grade (Social Studies) Designed by  Adam Kenworthy, Sonya Kuo, Angie Kim, Molly Philbin, Mia Kim
 * Journey to Find Gold**

**Introduction** You live in the midwest in 1849 and you just heard about the discovery of gold in California. You leave everything behind and head off on a journey to California in hopes of becoming rich. You are about to enter into the life of a gold miner.

**The Task** Through the creation of a scrapbook, you will experience the life of a gold miner during the Gold Rush. You will document your journey to California by including a map of your travels, supplies, hardships along the way, and what your new hometown is like.

**The Process** 1. Look at the map and find out what route you are going to take from Kansas. Along the way, circle and label the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Mojave Desert, and the Sonoran Desert. Use this map from the National Park Service to help you find them.
 * Crossing a mountain range or a desert can be dangerous. The desert will be hot and dry, and the weather in the mountains can be freezing cold. Click these links to compare the weather in San Diego to the weather in Needles, California (a town in the Mojave Desert) and Twin Lakes, Colorado (a town in the Rocky Mountains):
 * San Diego
 * Needles
 * Twin Lakes


 * When the weather is freezing cold or blazing hot, there is a danger of getting hypothermia or heatstroke. Click the links below to learn more about each one.
 * Hypothermia
 * Heatstroke
 * Look at your map again. Where are you more likely to get hypothermia? Where are you more likely to get heatstroke?

Will you cross the mountains, the desert, or both? Draw your route to California on your map. Look at the goldfields on this map to figure out where you will build your boomtown and mark the location on your map (a boomtown is a community that rapidly grows and prospers because of the discovery of a precious resource, which during the Gold Rush was obviously gold).



2.Describe how you prepared for the journey and what supplies you needed to bring.
 * Calculate an estimate of how much you spent on supplies for the journey and of how much you ate everyday.
 * You can find the different supplies and how much they cost here: [] and []


 * What kinds of food did you purchase and eat for your journey? Is what you ate during the journey considered healthy by our standards today?
 * You can find the different food and current health pyramid here: []and []



3. Using [|this map], what were some of the names of locations where gold was discovered? Where were they mostly located?
 * Look at these sites to get ideas for your own name of the boomtown that you settled in and describe it. From looking at these sites, what do you think a boomtown was like? What would life be like living in a boomtown? What kinds of buildings and what type of people do you think would live in your boomtown?

[|http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/despair.html] [|http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/goldcountry.html] []



4. What properties make gold valuable? Learn more about gold here: []
 * Why was California's gold different from the rest of the world's? Discover the difference of gold in California: http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/ goldcountry.html

 5. Watch the following video to learn how the early settlers panned for gold, then write down instructions in your scrapbook for how to pan gold. Be sure to include tricks and tips.
 * Video: Panning for Gold on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=dnkg4b6EIxc
 * Reflection and Hypothesis: How difficult do you think it was to pan for gold? What happens when more and more 49ers arrive in search of gold? What would you do to ensure that all the gold was found?
 * Fold a piece of paper down the middle (hot dog style) and label one side Hypothesis and label the other side Research. Compare and Contrast your Hypothesis with your research. Click on the link to learn more about the hardships of mining for gold. http://museumca.org/goldrush/ fever19-hy.html



 **Evaluation** There will be a common grade for each pair of students.

Preparation for journey (list of supplies/food) 20 pts Map with route 20 pts Boomtown description 20 pts Panning for Gold (Instructions/reflection/compare and contrast) 20 pts Value of gold 20 pts

 **Conclusion** After this activity, you will have learned about the journey and life of a gold miner. Along the way, you should have learned how to read a map, why gold was so valuable, how to pan for gold, and what the daily life of a miner looked like. Why do you think people traveled from such far places to discover gold? What do you think the effects of the Gold Rush were on the economy and life of these miners? How would you relate this experience to the real world now? Why would people migrate to new areas in the present day?

Here are some websites about the Gold Rush to find out more information: http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/ allabout.html http://pbskids.org/wayback/ goldrush/index.html

 **Credits & References** Our group worked together on the Introduction, Task, Evaluation, and Conclusion and split up the work for the Process.

Photo credits (listed in order as shown):

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Retrieved from [] on Sept. 12, 2010.

Retrieved from [] on Sept. 12, 2010.

Retrieved from [] on Sept. 12, 2010.

Retrieved from [] on Sept. 12, 2010.