During the course of this internet research project your
group will learn some general facts about California, the
people living there and the food eaten and produced there.
I hope you'll enjoy researching the internet for all the
information. Have fun!
PRESENTING YOUR RESULTS (10 minutes)
On Thursday you will be presenting what you have learned
about California to your classmates. You will have 45 minutes
to prepare your presentation and 10 minutes to give it.
Start thinking about what you want to put on your posters
during the last 10 minutes of today's class.
I suggest splitting up in 2 groups and making two posters,
one about general facts and the people of California, and
one about agriculture in California.
A. FACTS AND PEOPLE POSTER: Use the information
you found on the internet to create an interesting poster
for your classmates. Include all the information you find
most important. You can use graphs from the websites you
worked with to illustrate your poster. If you want to include
pictures, got to
http://gocalifornia.about.com/cs/photos1/a/bl_photo.htm
for a big selection of photographs from California.
B. AGRICULTURE POSTER: If you want you can go to
the supermarket before Thursday and see whether they have
any of the Californian products we talked about. Then you
could show your classmates original Californian food during
your presentation.
On Thursday please bring crayons, thick markers, scissors,
and glue!
FINDING INFORMATION ABOUT THE STATE CALIFORNIA (~ 30
minutes)
To learn about some of the important facts about California,
find answers to the following questions on the internet.
Find out some general information about California. What
is the size and population of California? Compare these
numbers with Germany. These websites can help you: http://factfinder.census.gov/home/en/kids/funfacts/funfacts.html,
http://www.factmonster.com/states.html.
On this second website you'll also be able to find the information
about Germany!
It is also helpful to compare the major cities in order
to get an idea of the size of a place.
Use
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/index.html to
name the 3 largest cities in California (CA) incl. their
population.
Every state in the US has so-called state insignias - a
certain state animal, flower, fish, color, dance, flag,
song, etc.
Go to this website http://www.library.ca.gov/history/cahinsig.cfm
to learn more about California's state insignias.
Pick 3 which you find especially interesting and explain
them in a few sentences.
GETTING TO KNOW THE CALIFORNIAN PEOPLE (~ 40 minutes)
Take a look at the major cities on this map of California.
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/usstates/largemap/calarge.htm
Does looking at the names of these cities give you
any ideas about where they came from?
Still today, long after the days of Spanish California,
one of the most interesting things about California is the
diversity of people living there. Every year thousands of
immigrants move to California, the state with the highest
number of immigrants in the US.
Activity 1: What do you know about immigration? Why do
you think people leave their home countries?
Now take a look at this file http://www.dof.ca.gov/HTML/DEMOGRAP/2000_INS_Report_with_tables.pdf
(the first 8 pages) and answer the following questions.
How many people came to California as legal immigrants
in the year 2000? How many percent are this of the total
number of immigrants to the US?
From which 3 countries are most of the immigrants in California?
Please write down the percentages as well. In contrast,
how many percent were it in the United States over-all?
Which city did most immigrants move to?
Were most of the immigrants already in the United States
or did they just arrive from their home countries?
What is the number one reason for immigration?
Where do most people immigrating for job purposes come
from?
Activity 2: Keeping in mind what you learned about the
people in California, do you think that there is a typical
Californian cuisine? You can write your opinion down here:
What about your hometown? Are there immigrants from other
countries? What kind of restaurants do we have here in Freiburg?
Since there are so many Mexicans in California there are
of course also a lot of Mexican restaurants. You can take
a look at this website to see a typical Mexican menu: http://www.wenchilada.com/wenchiladalist.html
But there are a lot of other types of restaurants, too.
Check out the menus of these restaurants in California:
o "Spago" in Beverly Hills (http://www.wolfgangpuck.com/myrestaurants/fine_dining/home/frame.php)
o "Mum's Restaurant" in Long Beach http://www.mumsrestaurant.com
o "Nick's at the beach" in San Diego http://www.nicksatthebeach.com/lunch.htm
From which countries are the meals influenced? Are there
any ingredients that are used very often? Is there one type
of food that is sold a lot at all restaurants?
LEARNING ABOUT AGRICULTURE IN CALIFORNIA (~ 30 minutes)
Now that you know some basic facts about California and
its people you're going to find out about where some of
the food comes from which they eat there.
On the following website you will find a text with lots
of interesting facts about California agriculture. The text
is quite long, but you will find all the information you
need on the first few pages (p. 28,30, 32). http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/card/pdfs/Statreview.pdf
I put some vocabulary you might not know on the next page
to help you with the text.
Activity: Circle the correct answers and fill out the
blanks. Please provide the right answer when a statement
is incorrect.
Agriculture is one of California's leading industries.
True ? False ?
Texas is the nation's #1 agricultural state. True ? False
?
California farmers and ranchers produce over 250 different
crops and livestock commodities. True ? False ?
The majority of farmland in California is owned by families.
True ? False ?
Cotton is California's #1 agriculture export commodity.
True ? False ?
The top 3 states in agricultural production are
1. __________________________________
2. __________________________________
3. __________________________________
List 5 of the commodities where California is the sole
producer in the US.
1. _____________________________________
2. _____________________________________
3. _____________________________________
4. _____________________________________
5. _____________________________________
California leads the nation in the production of _____
crops and livestock commodities. 36 64 75
According to government statistics, there are over _____,000
farms and ranches in California. 35 88 190
Vocabulary:
dairy = Molkerei, Milchwirtschaft
astonishing = amazing, surprising
favorable = günstig (nicht auf den Preis bezogen!)
abundance = Fülle, Überfluss
crops = Feldfrüchte, v. a. Getreide
commodities = Erzeugnisse, Waren
solely = only, exclusively
livestock = Vieh
persimmons = Dattelpflaume
to account for s.th. = etw. ausmachen, etw. beitragen/beisteuern
gross = Brutto...
ornamentals = Zierpflanzen
nursery = hier: Baum- oder Pflanzschule
poultry = Geflügel
to surpass = übersteigen
collectively = together
