American West: Cattle Ranching

This great resource looks at the development of cattle ranching and the key exam question on why cattlemen decided to drive their herds north? I’ve pitched the text level at lower to middle ability but the challenge of the final thinking skills review triangle is sufficient to stretch the more able.

The PowerPoint includes information slides on the background to cattle ranching and the long drives as well as information on:

The Impact of the American Civil War 1861-1865
Increased demand for beef in the East
The actions of Goodnight and Loving
The building of the railroads
The actions of Joseph McCoy

There are two core activities, a snowballing starter of the key words for the lesson and a thinking skills review triangle activity linked to a past paper question. As always, this resource can be easily edited and is designed to be used along side any main stream text book on this topic. The resource can also be uploaded to a virtual learning environment and set as a homework

The learning objectives are:

Theme: The American West
Know: How did cattle ranching develop in the American West?
Understand: Why did cattlemen drive their herds north?
Evaluate: Which factor was the most important?

WILF: What Am I Looking For?
Identify & describe: Why cattle ranching developed in the American West?
Explain: Why cattlemen drove their herds north?
Analyse: Begin to come to a judgement on which factor was the most important?

If you like this resource, then please check out some of my others in this series.

Kind Regards

Roy