Rice, Its Rise and Decline On-Site Activities

Rice: How its rise and decline shaped the economy of South Carolina - On-site Activity/Interpreter Led

Grade Level: 3
Content Area: History
Time to Complete: 45 minutes to 1 hour
Title of Lesson: Rice: How its rise and decline shaped the economy of South Carolina

South Carolina State Standards Addressed:

3-2.6	Summarize the contributions of settlers in South Carolina under the Lords Proprietors and the Royal colonial government, including the English from Barbados and the other groups who made up the diverse European population of early South Carolina. (H, G)
3-2.7	Explain the transfer of the institution of slavery into South Carolina from the West Indies, including the slave trade and the role of African Americans in the developing plantation economy; the daily lives of African American slaves and their contributions to South Carolina, such as the Gullah culture and the introduction of new foods; and African American acts of resistance against white authority. (H, E, P, G)
3-4.1	Compare the conditions of daily life for various classes of people in South Carolina, including the elite, the middle class, the lower class, the independent farmers, and the free and the enslaved African Americans. (H, E)

Lesson Description:

This program will discuss the early economy of South Carolina, its impact on the land and people, and the results of modern technology replacing old techniques in agricultural practices.

Focus Questions:

1.	What are a natural, a capital, and a human resource?
2.	Is there more than one way to view the same thing?
3.	How did the early economy, especially rice, reshape the land?
4.	What happens when the new and improved replaces the old?
5.	What were the benefits and disadvantages to only trading with one country?

Culminating Assessment:
See Post-Site activities

Materials/Equipment/Resources Included:
Mortar and pestle, rice
Fanner basket
Rice trunk
Game
Student’s Pre-Site Journal Entries

Procedures:

I.	Introduction and Welcome (parking area)
1.	Your name
2.	Safety issues
3.	Divide into groups if necessary

II.	The Settlement of the Carolinas (picnic shelter or portico)
A.	Reasons for coming over
1.	Lords Proprietors given land. Want to make money from natural resources and find a crop they can export that the other colonies don’t have
2.	What is a natural resource? (Have students guess. This leads into the next section.)
B.	Definitions (Have definitions on large note cards for students to read. Discuss definitions and name examples of each)
1.	Resource – an available supply that can be drawn upon when needed.
2.	Natural Resource – a material source of wealth that occurs in a natural state.
3.	Capital Resource – money needed to run a business.
4.	Human Resource – workers
C.	The Money Makers (List the products that were discovered and exported for money)
1.	Timber, foodstuff, deerskins, naval stores, rice, indigo, cotton, and the slave trade
2.	Which products are natural resources? Which products require capital resources to produce? Which products require human resources to produce?

III.	Trade (by the boardwalk)
A.	Who do you trade with now that you have items to sell?
1.	England, other English colonies, and the West Indies
2.	Why nobody else? England wants to control the trade so that they will make a huge profit off the colonies.
3.	Benefits: you always have someone to sell to. You don’t have to worry about England going elsewhere to find goods. Prices are good.
4.	Problems: other countries find other sources. If England ever decides to stop buying from you, you have no one to sell to. Example, the American Revolution and indigo.

IV.	The Land and Rice (by the creek and then behind the kitchen by old rice wall)
A.	Land- all of these products either came from the land or require land to produce
1.	What do you think the land looked like to those who arrived first? (trees, animals, etc.)
2.	How do you think they felt? (scared, excited, nervous, etc.)
3.	How did they interact with all of these new things? (Animals- used for food, clothing, and money. Trees- used for buildings, fuel, and money. Cleared the land for fields to grow crops.)
4.	Go over Pre-Site Journal Entry. Have some students read theirs and discuss how people see the same things differently.
B.	Rice- after experimenting rice was found to grow very well in Carolina (climate, topography, and availability and importance of fresh water) and construction began on fields to grow it in.
1.	Rice fields drastically changed the land. Moved large amounts of dirt and had to work in not so good conditions. Snakes, alligators, mosquitoes, heat, etc. The changes can still be seen in the land today. Compare to building of pyramids in Egypt.
2.	Construction of fields. 3 ways to grow rice: dry land, inland swamp, and tidal. Discuss how the different fields were made. Focus on tidal cultivation. Show the rice trunk model to show how water got in the fields.
3.	Season for planting and growing. Start in April, weed and water May, June, July. Harvest in August/September. Process into December.
4.	Harvesting techniques. Most brought over with African slaves. Later, machines were built to make the work go faster. Go over harvesting process. Hand out rice and have students separate from hull. Demonstrate all the techniques, allow some students to try.
5.	3 reasons rice is no longer grown. Modern technology, hurricanes, and lack of labor.
C.	Results of the decline of Rice
1.	Using the game, demonstrate what happens when a crop is no longer grown using the old ways and modern technology takes its place. The game will show how it affects people’s jobs and the economy.