Oklahoma Academic Standard 2.2  The student will examine Oklahoma’s geography and how people of Oklahoma interact with their environment.

Objective 2.2 Examine the interaction of the environment and the peoples of Oklahoma.

B. Describe how pioneers to Oklahoma adapted to and modified their environment, such as sod houses, windmills, and crops.

In a Nutshell

This objective develops student understanding of the concept of human-environment-interaction within historical contexts. Students should examine how some of the earliest residents of the region utilized natural resources for survival and trade, comparing these economic activities to later settlers who used the same resources for housing and agricultural and industrial economic activities.

Teacher Action 

Student Action 

• Provide frequent opportunities for students to describe how the physical environment impacts our daily lives and affects human activities in the past and present. 

• Facilitate routine asking and answering of geographic questions, using geographic information about the student’s community and state.

• Identify and describe how humans modify and adapt to their physical environment, using its natural and human resources.

• Describe how the movement of resources, people, goods, and ideas move, connecting communities, using historic illustrations related to trade and agricultural endeavors of early inhabitants of the region.

Key Concepts 

Misconceptions 

• fur trading economic activities and centers, farming, use of alternate building materials such as sod, early irrigation methods, application of wind power for irrigation purposes

• Some students may possess a perception that the region of present-day Oklahoma was relatively barren, lacking natural resources when first settled by pioneers.

• Some students may not understand that trade connected indigenous people prior to the establishment of trade patterns established with non-Indian settlers. 

Instructional Resources

Access suggested instructional resources correlated to the learning standard and objective.