Social Studies Chapter 8

Question 1

What is the main physical feature in the Midwest?

Answer 1

Plains

Question 2

What is most of the Middle West’s land used for?

Answer 2

farming and ranching

Question 3

Name 2 bodies of water formed part of the boundary of the Northwest Territory?

Answer 3

Ohio and Mississippi Rivers

Question 4

What event doubled the size of the United States in 1803?

Answer 4

Louisiana Purchase

Question 5

What process formed the Great Lakes thousands of years ago?

Answer 5

the moving and melting of glaciers

Question 6

What advantage made steamboats a better transportation method than flatboats?

Answer 6

Steamboats could go upstream as well as downstream

Question 7

How did the Midwest get settled?

Answer 7

The region was settled in in stages as different parts of the became part of the US

Question 8

Who were the first people to live in the Middle West region?

Answer 8

Native Americans

Question 9

The Midwest region has many __________ industries.

Answer 9

Food processing, steel, and furniture

Question 10

The climate of the Middle West is ______________.

Answer 10

• warm and wet in the summer.
• cold and snowy in the winter.
• sometimes severe with tornadoes and heavy lake effect snow

Question 11

The auto industry did well in the Midwest region because_____________.

Answer 11

The finished cars could be shipped out easily by water or by railroad and steel factories were close by

Question 12

Many pioneers on the Great Plains frontier used _______ for their houses.

Answer 12

Sod

Question 13

A long period of little or no rain.

Answer 13

Drought

Question 14

A person who starts a new business

Answer 14

Entrepreneur

Question 15

The process of making a product more quickly and cheaply using machines.

Answer 15

Mass Production

Question 16

Rock that has mineral in it.

Answer 16

Ore

Question 17

Changings way of life to survive in a new environment.

Answer 17

adapt

Question 18

Movement of people from one place to another.

Answer 18

Migration

Question 19

Place where livestock are bought, sold and held before shipment.

Answer 19

stockyard

Question 20

set of laws

Answer 20

ordinance

Question 21

Person who settles first in a place

Answer 21

Pioneer

Question 22

Also known as the Corn Belt.

Answer 22

Central Plains

Question 23

Has a lot of soybean and dairy farming.

Answer 23

Central and Great Plains

Question 24

Part of the Interior Plains

Answer 24

Central and Great Plains

Question 25

Is drier

Answer 25

Great Plains

Question 26

Eastern side of the plains

Answer 26

Central

Question 27

Wheat is the main crop

Answer 27

Great Plains

Question 28

Geography - Droughts

Answer 28

A drought is a period of little or no rain. In the 1930s the southern Great Plains had the worst drought in the history of the US. For nearly 10 years, there was little rain for farmers to grow crops there. The drought caused the soil to dry out. The strong winds below the dry soil away in huge dust storms. These storms filled homes with dirt and destroyed farms. The entire area became known as the Dust Bowl.

Question 29

Resources - fertile soil

Answer 29

The climate and soil of the Central Plains is perfect for growing crops. Crops has long been an important crop. In fact, much of the region is know was the Corn Belt. Farmers there grow soybean too. In the Great Plains the drier climate and harder soil are good for growing wheat. Most of this wheat is used to make flour because of this, the Great Plains are sometimes called America’s breadbasket.

Question 30

History - Sioux

Answer 30

The Sioux were one of the many Native American groups in what is now the Midwest. They lived in villages along the rivers and lakes of the Central Plains. There, they fished the waters and hunted in the forests. Some also farmed. When the European settlers came to the area the Sioux moved west and had to adapt to their new ways of life, to survive in the new environment.

Question 31

Growth - Steamboat

Answer 31

In the late 1700s and the early 1800s Robert Fulton an others developed a steamboat. A steamboat is a boat powered by a steam engine. The engine turns the boat’s large paddle wheel, causing the boat to move. Steamboats could travel upstream. They also traveled downstream must faster then flatboats. Trips that took weeks or months, took only days by steamboat. The coat of shipping goods dropped, and river travel increased.