United States History Student Edition

07

INQUIRY ACTIVITY

FLORIDA BENCHMARKS

Analyzing Sources: Life and Work in the Colonies ? COMPELLING QUESTION How did physical geography affect the economies of the different colonies? • SS.8.A.1.1 • SS.8.A.3.15 • SS.8.E.3.1

• SS.8.G.3.2 • SS.8.G.5.1

Plan Your Inquiry DEVELOPING QUESTIONS

Background Information The geography of the colonies strongly influenced each region’s economy. Instead of farming the rugged land, many New England colonists took advantage of the region’s harbors and worked in maritime industries. Fertile soil and a moderate climate enabled farms in the Middle Colonies to produce a variety of cash crops and livestock. Plantations developed in the Southern Colonies, where colonists used slave labor to take advantage of the large, level tracts of land, rich soil, mild climate, and rivers that made for easy transportation of crops to international ports on the coast. As you examine these memoirs, drawings, and advertisements produced by colonists and observers, think about how geography affects the economic activities of a region.

Think about the kinds of work colonists in cities and in towns did to provide for their families. Then read the Compelling Question for this lesson. What questions can you ask to help you answer this Compelling Question? Create a graphic organizer like the one below. Write your Supporting Questions in your graphic organizer.

What this source tells me about work in the colonies

Questions the source leaves unanswered

Supporting Questions

Primary Source

A B C D

E F

ANALYZING SOURCES Next, examine the sources in this lesson. Analyze each source by answering the questions that follow it. How does each source help you answer each Supporting Question you created? What questions do you still have? Write these in your graphic organizer.

After you analyze the sources, you will: • use the evidence from the sources • communicate your conclusions • take informed action

This illustration from the mid-1700s shows tobacco being processed in Virginia.

PHOTO: Photos.com/Getty Images

95

GO ONLINE

Explore the Student Edition eBook and find interactive maps, time lines, and tools.