Lesson Plan

Mining Unit: Death Valley Characters

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The ruins of an old building that has only two walls still standing with mountains in the background.
Grade Level:
Upper Elementary: Third Grade through Fifth Grade
Subject:
Literacy and Language Arts,Social Studies
Lesson Duration:
60 Minutes
Common Core Standards:
3.RL.3, 3.RL.4, 3.RL.6, 3.SL.4
State Standards:
California History Social Science Content Standards: 3.3.3; 3.5.1
Nevada History Social Science Content Standards: SS.3.22
Thinking Skills:
Understanding: Understand the main idea of material heard, viewed, or read. Interpret or summarize the ideas in own words. Applying: Apply an abstract idea in a concrete situation to solve a problem or relate it to a prior experience. Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts.

Essential Question

What impact did mining have in Death Valley?

Objective

Students will be able to:
• Explain a character’s point of view
• Analyze different character’s point of views on similar topics

Background

Since the 1848 discovery of gold in California, Death Valley experienced over 140 years of boom and bust mining. From the 1880s to the early 1900s, mining was limited and sporadic in the Death Valley region. In the mid-1900s, open pit and strip mines became popular. Legislation and Death Valley’s changing status to a national monument and then a national park put an end to most mining activity. Billie Mine was the last active mine which closed its doors in 2005.

Towns popped up and disappeared just as quickly around Death Valley based on where mining claims were somewhat successful.  Populations in these towns ranged from 400 to 10,000 people. Some were simple tent camps while others had infrastructure and accommodations like saloons and hotels. Rhyolite, Skidoo, Greenwater, Harrisburg, and Chloride City were examples of these bustling temporary towns that are now infamous ghost town sites.

While ghost towns now, these sites were full of people with different personalities and reasons for relocating to Death Valley. Prospectors looked for ore veins in the mountains and miners worked the land. Not everyone in these towns were prospectors or miners though. Towns needed supplies, schools, food, mail, transportation, and safety. People came west fulfilling these needs and hoping to get a share of the western riches and adventure.
 

Preparation

Read through the lesson ahead of time. Gather more information from the additional resources list as appropriate for your class.

Prepare the following materials for your class:

  • Internet connectivity to display the article
  • Mechanism to display the article to the class
  • Character Sheets (See materials section)
  • Questions for the Board (See Procedure section)

Materials

Print and copy one set of character sheets for each group in the class. There are 7 characters in each set. Cut out the individual character descriptions after making enough copies of the set for the class. Optional: laminate the individual character descriptions in order to use yearly.

Download Death Valley Characters: Character Sheets

Lesson Hook/Preview

Display the online article Land of a Thousand Voices on a class projector. Ask student volunteers to read each paragraph about different cultures who settled in Death Valley at different time periods. Be prepared to briefly discuss the information in each of the paragraphs. At the end of the article, instruct students to share with a classmate near them. Set a timer for 1 minute for one student in each pairing to share of which culture in the article they are most interested and why. When the timer buzzes, classmates switch roles and the other partner shares for 1 minute.

OPTIONAL: Ask for student volunteers to share their classmate’s interest.
 

Procedure

  1. After the lesson hook, tell the students today’s lesson is about the people in the Death Valley mining camps. People of many different cultures and social status came west and had to discover a new way to live.
  2. Divide the class into 7 groups. Each group will get a character sheet of a single person who lived in a Death Valley mining camp. Each student within a group needs a copy of the same character sheet. Each group is a different character.
  3. Each group reads their character sheet and engages in a discussion about this individual. Describe this person. How is this person related to mining? Where did this person live? What was this person’s job?
  4. Teacher writes the following Character Questions on the board:
    1. Q1- Who are you?
    2. Q2 – Did you travel far to get to Death Valley?
    3. Q3 – How did you earn money in Death Valley?
    4. Q3 – What is one thing you struggled with in the mining camp?
    5. Q4 – What is one thing you enjoyed in the mining camp?
  5. When everyone in the group understands their character, the group should answer the questions displayed on the board. The answers need to come from their character’s point of view. Students are encouraged to take notes about the answers discussed.
  6. When each group is finished, inform the class they will be switching groups now. Students should get their Character Sheet and their notes and prepare to move. Ask the students to count off from 1-7 in their groups. All the 1s are now a group, all the 2s are now a group, etc. There should be at least 1 of each different character in every new group.
  7. Once the new groups are settled, instruct the students to go through the questions on the board again. This time the student should take the perspective of their character. Ie: “My name is Shorty Harris. I came to Death Valley because I heard there was gold.” Every character in the group should answer number 1, then everyone should answer number 2, etc.

Vocabulary

  • Grub – A slang term meaning food - It is taken from another meaning for grub which is to dig. Pigs and other animals often grub for their food. Cowboys began to use this term for their food as well. 
  • Prospector – A type of explorer who looks for mineral deposits in the ground
  • Miner – A person who extracts (takes out) minerals from the ground.
  • Talc – A mineral which crushes to a white powder used in baby powder, paint, cosmetics, and many other items
  • Dysentery – An infection of the intestines causing diarrhea and dehydration
  • Slate Board – A hard, thin piece of material made from slate rock and used for writing
  • Postmaster – The person in charge of an individual post office

Assessment Materials

Group Work Rubric

Use attached Group Work rubric to assess the students' knowledge and support of each other during group work. Pass out the rubric before the activity so the students know your expectations.

PDF of rubric used for the Death Valley Characters activity.

Download Assessment

Supports for Struggling Learners

Instead of breaking into second groups, ask student volunteers to act out the different character’s answers in front of the whole class. Teacher and other students from the character’s group can support the actor with appropriate responses.

Enrichment Activities

  • Write a first-person point of view essay answering the questions from the student’s character’s perspective.
  • Click on and read the link for a specific cultural group in the Land of a Thousand Voices. Create at least three questions you still wonder about with this cultural group and their relationship to mining. Share and discuss your questions with a partner.

Additional Resources

Related Lessons or Education Materials

This is the second lesson in the mining communities unit. Be sure to check the Death Valley Curriculum Materials for more lesson plans in this unit.

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Tags: death valley national park mining aml

Last updated: November 22, 2021