4-2.2
Standard 4-2 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the settlement of North America by Native Americans, Europeans, and African Americans and the interactions among these peoples.
4-2.2: Compare the everyday life, physical environment, and culture of the major Native American cultural groupings, including the Eastern Woodlands, Southeastern, Plains, Southwestern, and Pacific Northwestern.
It Is Essential For Students to Know:
The everyday lives of Native Americans depended on the region in which they lived and how they interacted with their physical environment.
- Eastern Woodland native Americans lived in the eastern part of North America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River including the Great Lakes region.
- Southeastern Native Americans lived in the region from the Ohio River south to the Gulf of Mexico,.
- The Plains Native Americans lived on the Great Plains of central North America from north of what is today the Canadian border to present-day southern Texas.
- Southwestern Native Americans lived in the region that included what is today Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado, and Utah.
- The Pacific Northwestern Native Americans lived in the region that extended along the Pacific coast from what is today southern Alaska to northern California.
In order to compare these Native American groups attention should be paid to the following:
- How did the group get their food? Were they hunter gatherers or did they farm?
- Was the group’s everyday life based on frequent migration or did they live in permanent village settlements?
- How did their physical environment influence the type of homes that they constructed, the clothes that they wore and the food that they ate?
- What were their cultural practices, including beliefs and religious practices?
- How were they governed?
It Is Not Essential For Students To Know
- It is not essential for students to know specific tribes in these groupings or other Native American groups in North America.
- Students do not need to know famous people from these groups.
4-2.2 Links To Information For Teachers