America's Cultural Landscape
Created by Frontier Culture Museum Staff

Objective:
1.The students will be able to identify the various immigrants and the contributions made to the cultural landscape of Virginia and beyond the frontier.
2. The students will compare and contrast the customs of the early immigrants to the customs of today's society.

Activity: Create a poster depicting the contributions of early settlers on America's cultural landscape.

Materials:
Markers/Paint, Large sheets of paper, poster board

Procedure:
Day 1:
Use the slides provided to engage students in discussion. Discuss what factors led the German, Irish, and English to settle in the American Colonies and how some of these people came to be in Virginia. Discuss how many German immigrants and their descendents migrated from Pennsylvania. Have the students use their textbooks, library or internet resources to answer in more detail the questions on the slides.

English Slide		[PDF - 247KB]
Germany Slide		[PDF - 143KB]
Irish Slide		[PDF - 62KB]
Map of British Isles		[PDF - 106KB]
Map of Germany		[PDF - 40KB]

Day 2:
Have the students design a poster that will convey the information they learned about America's early immigrants to our cultural landscape. Encourage creativity while including valuable information.

Day 3:
Have students present their posters to the class.

Assessment: Rubric [PDF - 41KB]

Virginia Standards of Learning
VS.4 b		The student will demonstrate knowledge of life in the Virginia colony by b) describing how European (English, Scotch-Irish, German) immigrants, Africans, and American Indians (First Americans) influenced the cultural landscape and changed the relationship between the Virginia colony and England;