AnyOneCanRead®

      
Module F – Lessons 31 to 40

Lesson 31 – “Top University” Research –  Close Out Their Top 5,000 English Words

    
NEW WORDS: Akron, Birmingham, Blevins, Calhoun, Candice, Congressman, Democrats, Felipe, Franco, Iranian, Nikon, Palestinians, Republicans, Sandoval, Tehran, Trujillo, Wynton, YMCA, YouTube, abysmal, activists, admits, adolescents, affiliation, allegations, analyses, analysts, announcer, announcers, antioxidants, argues, assets, associates, assuming, assumptions, attorneys, backfill, bankruptcy, boycotted, breasts, brochure, bullish, census, cigarettes, civilians, clients, competitors, confidentiality, consulting, contributing, copyright, courtesy, cyberattacks, default, demise, dermatologists, designers, devils, districts, drugged, economists, editorialist, editors, electoral, embezzlers, emissions, executives, files, frivolous, gymnasium, identifying, implemented, incentives, indicted, industrialized, infringement, interventions, interviewing, investigators, investments, journalists, jurors, lambasted, literacy, missiles, network’s, nonprofit’s, observers, opinionated, panels, participants, peers, physicians, polls, prefers, preventative, prioritizing, professionals, prosecutors, prospects, protagonist, providers, publications, ratings, recommendations, recuperating, references, reforms, reserves, respondents, restructuring, reveals, revenues, salesperson, securities, seniors, sessions, settings, sidebar, sigma, sitcom, skinless, stooges, studios, suggesting, surveys, tablespoons, tabloid, targeting, taxpayers, technologies, terrorists, tours, treasury, treatments, trends, trendsetters, trials, unintelligible, unreleased, variance, veterans, videos, viewers, viewpoints, violations, winery     
     
  

Congressman Trujillo has introduced a bill on voting rights in Congress.
   
Their network’s viewers were shocked by what their key announcers said today.
   
The Democrats lost their majority in the House in the 2022 elections.
   
These YouTube videos of The Three Stooges are simply classic slapstick.
   
The Iranian capital is Tehran.
   
I’m heading to the Veterans Hospital to have some lab tests done.
   
In general, Palestinians and Israelis don’t get along very well.
   
Please dig into understanding the production output variance between our plant in Akron and our plant in Birmingham; they should be the same.
   
Republicans are typically fiscal conservatives.
   
Although he is recuperating, he’s still so drugged that he’s unintelligible when he tries to talk.
   
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the greatest civil rights activists in U.S. history.
   
In this Dickens novel, our protagonist goes through many trials and tribulations.
   
Though Dad grouses about our cat, he admits that deep down he kind of likes the little beast.
    
Our research company studies trends in consumer behavior.
     
When she switched jobs to go to a middle school, she found that the adolescents were a bit harder to get under control when compared with younger kids who she was used to.

Many dermatologists suggest that a few treatments of this new makeup foundation will make your skin look better.
   
Our local YMCA has an affiliation with our school system, and it helps with after-care programs.
    
The Treasury Department was very concerned that Congress wouldn’t raise the debt ceiling, thus putting the government into default.
   
After we won the championship, our coach said, “The allegations of our team’s demise were highly mistaken.”
   
We give tours of our winery every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
    
Our analyses have shown this food to be high in antioxidants.
   
Here are the names of the four men who are accused of being terrorists.
    
The financial analysts are bullish on the stock market over the next six months.
   
We can’t even imagine the new technologies that will exist fifty years from now.
   
The TV announcer had an interesting interview with the President.
   
Taxpayers are furious about the proposed bump in the local sales tax.
    
The Treasury Secretary argues that we should raise interest rates.
    
Please put two tablespoons of cream into my coffee.
   
Our financial assets have dropped seven percent in value during the latest bear market.
   
Recent surveys of 18- to 25-year-olds are finding surprising viewpoints about the current political climate.

All of my associates where I work are super smart.
   
Are you suggesting that I be crazy enough to dive into that icy cold water?
    
This old warehouse has been remodeled to house ten studios for burgeoning young artists.
   
Kids, I’m assuming that you’re ready for dinner, right?
    
The sidebar on page 324 talks about odd behaviors of Tasmanian Devils.
   
We need to test our assumptions with a designed experiment.
    
Here, let me show you my preferred settings on my new Nikon digital camera.
    
The attorneys for the prosecution rested their case.
   
I just got a CD of previously unreleased studio sessions of my favorite rock group.
   
The struggling company had no choice but to declare bankruptcy and to undergo restructuring.
   
After the seniors are graduated in the gymnasium, balloons are going to drop from the ceiling.
   
Felipe, please bring home two pounds of skinless chicken breasts.
    
Mr. Calhoun is being indicted for potential securities violations, likely including insider trading.
    
In the latest census, it shows that our city’s population has grown eighteen percent over the last decade.
   
That nonprofit’s revenues are barely enough to cover their costs.

There’s no question that smoking cigarettes can give you lung cancer.
    
Our internal audit reveals a strong sense of employee respect for our compliance policies.
   
In the military strike, fortunately no civilians were harmed.
    
The respondents to our survey whacked us for their having terrible experiences with our call-taking center’s employees.
    
Each year, all of our clients are sent a copy of our company’s privacy policy.
    
Our company has strong balance sheet reserves, so we can weather a recession relatively well.
    
All of our competitors suffered severe supply chain problems during the COVID-19 pandemic.
    
In a list of proposed reforms to the U.S. governmental structure, the radical think tank suggests that we abolish the Electoral College and put term limits on both House members and Senators.
    
Candice is consulting with the CEO to see which of the three proposed advertising campaigns she prefers.
    
Wynton, when you start interviewing for jobs, they will ask you for references of people who know you and think that you’re a good worker.
    
Franco Sandoval is a frequent contributing editorialist to our newspaper.
    
Among their recommendations, the consulting group said that the company should have much stronger background checks as part of their hiring practices.
    
You can’t grab just any photo off of the Internet to use in a marketing brochure; the odds are high that this would be a copyright infringement.
    
TV ratings on this new sitcom are through the roof!
    
As a courtesy, please place Ms. Blevins at the head of the dinner table.

Tabloid publications are full of made-up news about the British Royal Family.
    
The dress designers at our firm are the world’s best, and they are trendsetters for the latest in global fashion innovation.
    
Many medical insurance providers cover an annual physical at no cost, since it is a good preventative illness measure.
   
There have been very few changes to most voting districts in our state over the last twenty years.
    
The insurance salesperson lined up his prospects to talk to over the coming week.
   
Lots of world economists get very nervous if key banks start to fold.
   
The prosecutors grilled the defendant about his connections with many known embezzlers.
   
The editors at our paper are very careful about keeping the confidentiality of our news sources.
   
Many golf professionals boycotted this tournament, because the sponsor company has been under scrutiny for abysmal workforce treatment.
    
The “higher levels” of the education “system” across the U.S. have been lambasted for their inability to improve student reading scores over decades.
    
Recent polls show that trust in the U.S. Supreme Court is at its lowest level in decades.
   
If the nations of the Earth do not quickly find ways to cut carbon emissions, then there will be severe negative impacts for future generations.
   
The physicians in our hospitals have all been trained in the very latest nutrition guidelines for healthier living.
   
Many executives from tech companies have come before Congress to discuss both the pros and dangers of artificial intelligence.
   
The reviews by the scientist’s peers found her recent paper to be virtually flawless in terms of both design and conclusions.

I’ll bet that the defense team files a motion to throw out this case as a frivolous lawsuit.
   
The participants in the city’s mini-marathon were way up from last year.
   
This group of scientists is identifying itself as a proponent of stem cell research.
   
The discussion panels that the mayor has had throughout the city have been well attended.
   
The military has implemented a project to help us find better ways to defend against cyberattacks.
    
Observers of that country’s election processes were pleased to find them highly robust, with very few examples of attempts at fraud.
   
Our state is offering homeowners tax incentives for getting solar panels for their homes.
   
We’ve found the enemy’s missiles to be highly inaccurate in their targeting capabilities.
   
Interventions are often needed to get persons who have problems with alcoholism to admit that they need help.
     
The state of literacy in the U.S. is disastrous, with reading scores virtually at the bottom of all industrialized nations.
   
We’re interviewing three strong candidates to backfill our open Six Sigma leadership position.
    
The jurors deliberated for just five hours, and they found the candidate to be guilty.
    
Our investments in research and development have paid off, as we have a strong new-product pipeline.
    
Investigators at the crime scene are prioritizing finding DNA samples.
    
I prefer journalists who deal with the facts, and who are not so opinionated in their reporting.

    
     
*********
   
   
Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)   
   

Lesson 32 – Exploring America’s Land And Water

    
NEW WORDS: Capitan, Chen, Chevy, Curtis, Geysir, Icelanders, Logan’s, Lowell, Moab, Raymond, Russo, Tahoe, Tharp, Waterton, aesthetic, alpine, beginner’s, blemishes, bunchgrass, calderas, cohort, compressing, craggy, dunes, encompasses, etched, expanses, facades, gradient, grasps, grinds, groove, hemlock, hobbies, hues, inclines, jetty, landforms, landslide, marred, monument’s, mudslide, mudslides, netting, optically, phantasmagorical, preservation, prismatic, prolong, protozoa, racking, rangers, responds, rockslide, roils, scatters, sculpting, sentinel, silicone, snaked, straddling, supercolossal, telephoto, terrestrial, thermal, thermophile, transfigured, vitiate, windswept, zooms     
      
   

Chapter One: America’s Amazing Expanses
   
It’s finally summertime in Lowell, Massachusetts, and Logan is excited about his family’s vacation. This year, they are driving all the way across the country and back on a journey of nearly 8,000 miles! Logan’s dad, Curtis, just purchased a new Chevy Tahoe, and he can hardly wait to get it road-tested. The family will leave their home on the east coast of the United States. They will travel all the way to California on the west coast of the country and back again. There’s only one traveling rule that the parents have. The kids can NOT sing “99 bottles of beer on the wall!”
   
Logan and his family will stop at six different national parks along the way. On their road trip they will see mountains, and they will see places that are nearly flat for hundreds of miles. They will see deserts, and they will see lakes and streams. They will even see snow in the summertime! What makes the land in one country so different from place to place? Maybe Logan will find out.
   
   
The First Stop: Mount Rushmore, South Dakota
   
Logan’s family’s first stop is Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the state of South Dakota. Logan thinks that with a name like “Mount Rushmore,” they must be visiting a mountain. And they are. But he learns that one side of this mountain is unusual. Mount Rushmore is a monument. It is a giant sculpture that people carved into the mountain rock. The carving shows the faces of four United States presidents. They are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. The sculpture was completed in 1941 after a cohort of many people spent about fourteen years sculpting it.
   
When they arrive at the park, Logan’s family walks down a long stone path. It is lined with the 50 state flags on both sides, and the faces of Mount Rushmore loom above them. Logan feels as tiny as a Protozoa. The imposing etched rock facades are “supercolossal,” as Logan might say!
   
As he gets closer, he notices two specks on a president’s face. Are the carvings so realistic that the sculptors have carved blemishes on the faces? Apparently not, as the specks seem to be moving. When he looks through binoculars, he grasps that they are actually people! One person is hanging from ropes that hold him in place while he moves across the face. Logan wonders what in the world they might be doing up there.

Chapter Two: Protecting Stone from Changes
   
Logan asks one of the park rangers about the people who he saw climbing the sculpture. The guide explains that the workers are protecting the monument from the weather. This seems strange to Logan. This whole place is outside, and the monument is stone that has been outdoors forever. Why would such a thing need protection from the weather, and how would people protect a giant stone carving?
   
He learns that the people who work to prolong the monument’s preservation check the stone for cracks. The faces at Mount Rushmore are carved into granite rock, and water can transude into cracks in this type of stone. During cold weather, the water freezes into ice, as you know. As the ice becomes solid, it expands, or gets a little bigger. Ice inside cracks in rock pushes the granite apart little by little, and the cracks can get bigger. Over time, small cracks could cause large chunks of rock to break off and fall. This happens to carved stones and to natural rock, too.
   
To preserve Mount Rushmore, workers fill cracks so that water cannot get into them. This protects the sculpture. They fill the cracks with a material called silicone, which is somewhat like a thick glue. It is hard and rubbery when it dries. And even better, silicone is waterproof. It keeps water out of the cracks.
   
During his trip, Logan reads more about how stone can be marred. He learns that stone monuments can also be transfigured by wind. The Great Sphinx, a very old monument in Egypt, is another giant rock carving. There is little rain and no ice to break the rock apart there, but it is hot, windswept, and sandy. Wind blows tiny grains of sand against the monument, and it grinds away at the stone. Over many years, the stone has worn away.
   
Workers try to protect the Sphinx from changes caused by wind. The Sphinx is much older than Mount Rushmore. It’s about 4,000 years old! Wind has been blowing sand against it for a very long time, and it looks very different than how it used to look many years ago.

Chapter Three: On The Road Again
   
The Second Stop: Glacier National Park, Montana
   
Logan and his family continue their road trip. Their next stop is Glacier National Park in the state of Montana. Logan has learned that a glacier is made of ice. He supposes that this must mean it will be cold and snowy there. But when they arrive, Logan is surprised to see a colorful summer landscape. The grass is green, and the wildflowers are in bloom. The only snow that he sees is near the tops of the tall mountains in the distance.
   
Logan’s family decides to hike, and they hope to see a glacier up close. They also want to see some of the beautiful lakes and streams here. How will they find them? They will use a topographic map. The map shows where the mountains are, where the glaciers are, and where the lakes and streams are, too. The map shows trails that they will walk on to find these things. But the topographic map also shows elevations, so they’ll get a feel for the degrees of inclines that they’ll have to go up and down on.
   
Logan’s family finds their trail and starts hiking. The trail first leads to a large lake that’s bright turquoise blue. When Logan touches the water, it is very cold, and it’s so clear that he can see the bottom. The sides of the lake have a high gradient, and they are quite craggy.
   
Their hike continues along a stream that runs next to the trail. The water in the stream is deep, and it’s moving quickly. It roils past them sounding somewhat like a freight train! It flows downhill over and around rocks and small boulders. The trail ends at a lookout. Logan and his family can see for miles! There are tall mountains, and there are deep valleys that are shaped like the letter “U.” Suddenly, Logan sees a large mass of snow and ice in the distance. He’s spotted the glacier!
   
One of his dad’s hobbies is landscape photography. He switches to a telephoto lens on his camera, zooms in on the distant glacier, and takes a couple of shots. After looking at the shots on the screen on the back of his camera, he yells, “that shot is going to be phantasmagorical once it’s developed!” Logan smiles at seeing his dad acting kind of like a little kid at Christmas. Not to mention, he likes to learn all kinds of crazy new vocabulary words from his dad.

Chapter Four: Mountains, Ice, And Water
   
Is it strange for Logan to see a glacier in the summertime? Not really! Glaciers are very large. They may become smaller during the warm summer months, but usually they do not melt completely. Year after year, new snow gets added to a glacier. The new snow is heavy, and the layers underneath are always compressing together.
   
Many glaciers form high in the mountains where it stays cold all year. The weight of the snow and ice – and the melted water underneath it – cause a glacier to actually move. Like any object on a steep hillside, a glacier can slide downhill. A glacier that’s slowly snaked its way downhill can look like a river of ice.
   
A glacier is very heavy, so when it scrapes along the ground as it moves, it moves a lot of rock and soil with it. Glaciers can change the land around them in different ways. They can push and pile up large and small boulders. They can carve out U-shaped valleys. They can leave steep peaks at the tops of mountains.
   
Glaciers shaped the land in Glacier National Park. They also helped to form its water features. Many glaciers melt a little in the summer, so some water flows out from them. It flows into streams, rivers, and lakes. Some glaciers melt completely over time. When this happens, the hollow shape of the glacier is left behind. It fills with water, and a lake is formed. Sliding glaciers can grind rock into a fine powder. The powder mixes with water in lakes, and it can make them appear blue or green.

Editor’s note: one additional cool thing about Glacier is that there is a sister national park in Canada just to the north. It’s called Waterton Lakes National Park. Straddling the international border, the geographic combination of “Waterton-Glacier” symbolizes goodwill and cooperation between Canada and the United States. Referred to as the “Crown of the Continent,” this area is home to one of the world’s most remarkable and unique natural environments.
   
There’s also a “Peace Park” here. A National Park Service brochure describes the area like this:
   
“Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park and World Heritage Site straddles the northern Rocky Mountains along the border between the United States and Canada. The world’s first “international peace park,” the combined site encompasses breathtaking snowcapped mountains, high-altitude lakes, and rivers cascading from glaciers. Glacial landforms, preserved fossil assemblages, breathtaking rock formations, and other geological features provide outstanding aesthetic beauty. Ancient cedar-hemlock forests, alpine tundra, and extensive bunchgrass prairie provide diverse natural habitats for over 300 terrestrial species of animals. These mountains are home to a number of threatened or endangered species, including the grizzly bear, gray wolf, lynx, bald eagle, and peregrine falcon.”
   
Is this beautiful part of North America calling your name to visit it sometime in your life?

Chapter Five: A Faithful Trip
   
The Third Stop: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
   
Logan’s family hits the road again. They now make their way to Yellowstone National Park, which spreads out over parts of three states, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. In Glacier National Park, Logan saw how snow and ice can shape land. In Yellowstone National Park, Logan sees some very hot water, which is quite a contrasting sight with what he saw at Glacier! A huge geyser called “Old Faithful” is Yellowstone’s most famous feature. A geyser is an underground pocket of water that gets heated. When it gets hot enough, the water shoots out of the ground. This happens the way that a pot can boil over on a stove. It’s nicknamed “Old Faithful” because of how often it erupts. (Note: The English word “geyser” is derived from “Geysir,” a name given by Icelanders in the seventeenth century to an intermittently discharging hot spring in southwest Iceland.)
   
Once again, Logan’s family uses a map of the park. The map shows the land and water features that they have come to see. There is one very large lake in the park. There are a few smaller lakes, too. The map shows mountains. The area in the middle of the park seems flatter, though. This part is full of places called “geyser basins.”
   
The family visits a place called Midway Geyser Basin. Logan can feel heat as he and his family cross the boardwalk over Midway Geyser Basin. He can see steam rising off the hot springs around them. Where does the heat come from? It comes from inside the Earth, beneath their feet. Logan and his family don’t know it, but they are walking across the top of a giant volcano!
   
Next, the family visits Yellowstone Lake, which sits in part of an area known as the Yellowstone Caldera. Calderas are the bowl-shaped craters at the center of volcanoes. A volcano erupted here thousands of years ago. Logan can see mountains and forests around the lake. The lake is formed in the low area in the center of the caldera.

Chapter Six: Heat Below The Earth’s Surface
   
Yellowstone National Park does not look like the pictures of volcanoes that Logan has seen. What do you think of when you imagine a volcano? Do you picture hot lava pouring from a tall mountain? Do you see smoke and ash bursting into the sky? Or do you imagine a hot, glowing liquid bubbling inside a deep crater? There are different kinds of volcanoes. Some are steep mountains, while others are hidden under the ocean. But the volcano in Yellowstone is under the ground.
   
Volcanoes and geysers are produced by heat from below Earth’s surface. Volcanoes occur where hot melted rock from underground pushes up and out through an opening. The hot rock can also heat underground water. Logan saw signs of underground heat as he walked around the park.
   
Millions of years ago, huge eruptions happened where Yellowstone is now. The ground caved in after each one, and deep craters were suddenly left behind. Hot liquid still flows miles under these craters. Heat from the liquid causes many of Yellowstone’s features.
   
A hot spring is a pool of hot water. The water is heated from beneath the ground. Steam vents do not have pools of water like hot springs. Hot water underground turns into steam and flows out of cracks in the Earth. A geyser forms when hot water bubbles up to the surface. The small opening does not let the water move around like it can in a hot spring. Pressure builds until steam and water explode from the ground.
    
The family has seen some awesome sights in Yellowstone. And they’ve learned quite a bit about Earth’s geology. But dad is always thinking about his photographs, and there’s one more place that he wants to take shots of before they leave. When they get there, Logan’s eyes can hardly believe what he’s seeing, and he certainly understands why his dad wanted to come here! The “Grand Prismatic Spring” looks like something from another planet. Of all the thermal features in Yellowstone, the Grand Prismatic is the most photographed, and it’s frequently paired with any mention of the Park. It’s the largest hot spring in the U.S., and it’s the third largest hot spring in the world. Here’s why it is so optically intriguing. The hot spring has bright bands of orange, yellow, and green that ring the deep blue waters in the spring. The multicolored layers get their hues from different species of thermophile (heat-loving) bacteria living in the progressively cooler water around the spring. And the deep blue center? That’s because water scatters the blue wavelengths of light more than others, reflecting blues back to our eyes.

Chapter Seven: The Trip Continues
   
The Fourth Stop: Yosemite National Park, California
   
Logan’s family has arrived in California! Their next stop is Yosemite National Park. Movements of the Earth’s surface pushed up the park’s tall mountains. Glaciers carved out the park’s land, and they also helped to fill the park’s many lakes with water.
   
As Logan’s family enters the park, they drive over a road through a very rocky area. In the past, rain, wind, and ice broke off chunks of rock along the side of the hill, and gravity pulled the loose rock and soil down the hill. The road is safe now, but what if there is another rockslide?
   
Yosemite is full of other natural wonders. It is known for its many waterfalls. They roar to life in spring and summer when snow melts. Waterfalls form when water from rivers and streams pours over high rock ledges. Over time, the flowing water can carve a groove there. Yosemite Falls is one of the tallest waterfalls in the world. It is over two thousand feet high!
   
Logan and his family visit a strange rock formation called Half Dome. It is tall and wide and curved at the top. One half of Half Dome is smooth and steep. The other half is round. Logan is surprised to see people trying to climb the steep side! He looks up at his mom and says, “Are those people crazy? They could kill themselves!”
   
Mom responds, “I bet you didn’t know that your Uncle Raymond was a very accomplished rock climber when he was younger. In fact, he has climbed Half Dome, right where you see the climbers up there. He’s also climbed another very famous climbing challenge here in Yosemite, and that’s called “El Capitan.” I don’t know if he’s done the third famous climb here. That’s called “Sentinel.”

Logan’s mom continues. “Now, I can see why you’d call them crazy. Rock climbing is a very challenging avocation. But they’re not crazy. There are a lot of protective practices that rock climbers use to make it safer. But I will say this. It’s certainly not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach! Raymond took me to a beginner’s climb when I was a teenager. I got to the top, but for me it was a bit nerve-racking. Not my cup of tea! I’ll stick to tennis.” 
   
As Logan watches the climbers, he wonders why one side of Half Dome is shaped so differently from the others. Half Dome began as a giant underground rock that was pushed to the surface. The rounded areas became curved as layers of rock were ground away by rock, ice, wind, and water. The steep flat wall got its shape when huge pieces fell off. These processes took millions of years. But did some changes take place quickly?
   
It took many years for rain, wind, and ice to vitiate the rocks on the hill in Yosemite. But then a rockslide happened suddenly. It caused a fast change to the land around it. Rockslides are dangerous because they happen with no warning. Buildings that are close to steep rock walls can be hit by falling and sliding rocks during a rockslide. People have found a few ways to prevent rockslides. Workers can put wire netting over the loose rocks to keep them from falling, and they can use giant bolts to keep large slabs of rock from moving.
   
Like rockslides, mudslides and landslides can happen very fast. Mudslides happen when a lot of water mixes with soil on a hill. The soil loosens, and it can suddenly slide down a steep slope. A mudslide can flow over anything in its path. Logan’s mom said, “I remember seeing news reports of mudslides that covered entire major highways. And where we are right now, California, they’re a state with a higher number of mudslides than most states.”
   
A landslide can also happen. Landslides occur when soil is dry or when plants have been destroyed by fire. Plant roots hold soil in place on a hill. If the roots are not strong enough, the earth can slide downhill.

Chapter Eight: We’re Getting There
   
The Fifth Stop: Arches National Park, Utah
   
On the road again! Next, Logan’s family arrives at Arches National Park near Moab, Utah. It is different from the other parks that they have visited. It is sandy, and the summer weather here is hot. There are few trees, and it feels and looks like a desert. Tall red rocks rise from the land, and the rocks are all different shapes and sizes.
   
Logan sees how this park got its name. He notices that many of the rock formations are shaped like arches. Most of them stand alone. Others, like Double Arch, have formed right next to each other. All of the rock formations in Arches are made of a kind of rock called sandstone. Sandstone is made up of tiny grains of rock and other materials.
   
Arches are a common rock shape in the park. But there are others, too. Some rocks are shaped like tall columns, and they are called “pinnacles.” Other areas have many thick walls of standing rock. They are called “fins.” Some fins eventually become arches. Logan wonders how this happens.
   
Well, Arches National Park is in a desert. But it gets about nine inches of rain per year. That is all that is needed for the rocks to change little by little. Wind and water wear away at surfaces of the sandstone. Tiny pieces break off and blow away or wash away, and then unusual rock shapes form.
   
Water soaks into the tiny spaces in a rock’s surface. Wind carries tiny bits of sand that grind against rock from the outside. A hole begins to form when enough of the rock wears away. A small hole can turn into a big arch. This takes a long time. The top of an arch can fall, and the collapse can leave two pillars and a pile of boulders. This happens suddenly.
   
Rock arches can form in other places besides the desert. Wind and water along the rocky ocean shore can produce arches. Like the desert arches, these also take a long time to form. But they can change quickly, too. Arches become weaker as water and wind wear them away.

Chapter Nine: Not Too Far From Home
   
The Last Stop: Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts
   
The end of summer break is near, and soon Logan will be back in school. Logan and his family have finally returned home from their adventure. On Saturday morning, Logan’s mom asks if they would like to spend one last day at the seashore. Logan loves the beach and dunes! They pack up the car and head to the Cape Cod National Seashore.
   
Logan and his family make their way to the beach. They walk on a long sandy path with grassy mounds of sand all around them. They reach the place where the ocean meets the land. Ocean waves roll onto the beach, one after the other, never stopping. Sand stretches along the waterline as far as Logan can see.
   
The beach and the dunes here are never silent. Logan can hear the steady sound of ocean waves splashing onto the beach. But often, the sound of the water is covered up by the even louder steady wind. Logan notices that it seems to be windy here all the time. Down on the beach, the umbrella flaps in the breeze. Up on the dunes, the grasses are rustling and swaying.
   
Logan also notices some things here in this natural area that were built by people. He sees wooden fences along the paths that cross the dunes to the beach. He sees more fences across the tops of many dunes. He sees signs telling people to keep off of the dunes. And every so often along the beach, Logan notices a long pile of large rocks. The rocks are arranged in a narrow pile extending from the beach out into the ocean water.

Chapter Ten: Wind, Water, And Sand
   
Cape Cod National Seashore has forty miles of sandy beaches and eight thousand acres of sand dunes. That is a lot of sand! Waves, wind, and storms change land that is made up of loose sand. Compared to most changes of rock, changes to sand landforms take less time.
   
Sand is made up of tiny pieces of rock and broken seashells. Ocean waves push rocks and shells around under the water. The pieces crash into each other, they break apart, and waves wash sand to the shore. It collects there, and a beach forms. Wind blows sand into piles away from the waterline. The dry sand piles up to form dunes.
   
Beaches and dunes are always changing. Wind and water move sand easily. Waves that push sand up to form a beach also wash the sand away. This can take a long time, or it can happen very quickly. Waves don’t always come straight into the shore. They often come toward the shore at an angle. They push sand up or down the shoreline. People build structures to protect beaches. A jetty or wall can keep waves from pushing sand away from a beach.
   
Big storms like hurricanes can cause waves to be much larger than usual. Big waves can move a lot of sand at once. A large storm can completely wash a beach away in just a day or two.
   
Sand dunes change shape and size with the wind. Sometimes people want to keep dunes from blowing away. Dunes are home to plants and animals. Dunes also keep ocean water from flooding dry land where people live.
   
Grasses that grow on dunes help to protect the dunes. Their roots hold some of the sand in place. Their leaves block some of the wind from pushing on the sand. Plants keep rain from washing sand away from a dune. Beach grass grows naturally in dunes by beaches. People also add plants to dunes that they want to protect.
   
Do you remember the fences that Logan saw when he explored the dunes? Fences are another way that people prevent changes to sand dunes. Fences keep people on narrow paths that cross the dunes to reach the beach. That way, people don’t walk on the beach grasses that help to hold the dune in place.
   
Fences can block the wind, too. They keep too much sand from blowing away from a dune. A fence can also help a dune form where there isn’t one. A fence in a flat area where sand blows can cause the sand to collect into a pile. Over time, the pile grows large enough to form a dune.

Chapter Eleven: Science In Action – Mapping The Ocean Floor
   
Back at school, Logan is excited to tell his teacher and classmates about his big summer trip. He learned a lot about land and water. He shows the other students the places that he visited on a map. He shares some of the pictures that he took on his cellphone.
   
Today, Mr. Chen has a surprise planned for his students. They will have a video call with a scientist over the Internet. Mr. Chen says to the class, “Remember the mountains, valleys, and volcanoes that Logan described from his trip? And you’ll recall how he showed us where they are on a map? Think about those things when we are talking with our guest, Dr. Russo.”
   
The scientist who they see on the screen shows them a globe and points out how most of it is blue. “The globe is a model of Earth,” he says, “and most of Earth is covered by the ocean.”
   
“But land features don’t end where the ocean meets the shoreline,” he continues. “What is beneath all of that water?” he asks. “More land! The land below the ocean’s water is called the seafloor.”
   
Then Dr. Russo says some words that really catch Logan’s attention. “The seafloor has mountains and valleys just like dry land does,” he says. “It even has volcanoes.”
   
Dr. Russo is a scientist who makes maps of the seafloor. He shows the students some seafloor maps. The maps show hills and flat places. They show mountain peaks and valleys. Dr. Russo explains that many areas of the ocean floor still have not been mapped with much detail. He tells students that he is continuing the work of another seafloor mapmaker named Marie Tharp.
   
For a long time, people thought that the ocean floor was flat. But a scientist named Marie Tharp helped to prove that it wasn’t. She was the first person to map the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. She proved that it was covered with mountains and canyons, just like Earth’s land surface.
   
Marie Tharp could not actually see the ocean floor. She used data. Scientists on a boat used a system called sonar to collect the data. Sonar can tell how deep the water is beneath a boat. Marie Tharp combined many, many depth measurements. She used them to draw the high and low places on the seafloor.

   
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)   
   

Lesson 33 – Light, Sound, Electricity, And Magnetism

    
NEW WORDS: AA, AAA, Eva’s, Gould, Ruiz, Ruiz’s, adumbral, airliner, alkaline, anodes, asphalt, attaches, batteries, biggie, bombinations, botched, caliginous, cathode, cathodes, causation, cell’s, ceramic, chiseling, circuits, clanging, clatters, cloudburst, collector, conductivity, conductors, conducts, conveniently, cordless, coulee, cranking, debilitating, dimmer, electrician, electricians, electrochemical, electrocuted, electrodes, electrolyte, energizer, exceeds, exposes, fiberglass, fibrous, generator, generators, graphite, hydroxide, inquisitively, installs, insulator, insulators, intelligently, invisibly, ions, kiddo, laptop, lasers, lightbulb, magnetism, peasy, rechargeable, recharged, resonate, resonated, resonating, reverberations, separator, shaver, showgoers, static, streetlights, switching, tabletop, toothbrushes, tooting, vacuuming, vibrated, volt, whiten, wholesome, wire’s, wired, woof, workbench, zigzag
   
   

Science: Exploring Light and Sound
   
A Trip To A Concert
    
Mr. Ruiz has exciting news! His class is going to a musical concert with a symphony orchestra, and the class is thrilled. Their seats are in the last row of the theater, but Mr. Ruiz says, “Don’t worry, because all of you will be able to see and hear just fine.” The concert turns out to be amazing, and it way exceeds the kids’ expectations! There are lights, and there are music and sound effects. On the ride back to school, the students talk about the best parts, and they wonder how it is that each person in the concert hall could see and hear so well. Mr. Ruiz says, “Let’s examine this inquisitively to find out, and that way we can practice a bit of the scientific method!”
    
    
Sound And Vibration
    
A noisy airliner passes overhead, and the windows of the homes rattle. How are the two connected? Think about causes and effects. Yes, something about the sound of the jet causes the windows to rattle! Here’s another example. When you pluck a guitar string, it will vibrate. To vibrate means to move back and forth quickly, and a moving string causes the air to vibrate. The moving air causes parts of your ears to vibrate, so a resonating string causes a sound that you can hear with your ears. Can you explain how a window clatters? The jet engine vibrates, and it makes air around the engine resonate. The vibrating air causes the windows to rattle or vibrate.
   
Mr. Ruiz asks his class a question. “What were the things that resonated at the concert?” He explains, “the instruments vibrated when played by the musicians, and the microphones vibrated. The big speakers around the theater vibrated, and the air around vibrated. These reverberations made the sounds that we heard.”
   
There were lots of sounds during the concert. There was a cymbal clanging; there was a drum banging; there was a horn tooting. Each sound was made by something that vibrated, which, in turn, made the air vibrate. How does this help you to explain why people in the last row can hear the sounds?

Light
   
Mr. Ruiz tells his class a tale about two brothers, where one brother walks into the bedroom, and he sees his younger brother on his hands and knees crawling under the lamp. The younger brother says that he is looking for a pencil that he lost. The older brother says, “Are you sure that you lost it here by the lamp?”
   
The younger brother says, “No, but the light is much better here.” What’s funny about this story?
   
Some objects around you give off light. The sun gives off light; lamps give off light; mobile phones give off light; and we can see light when it enters our eyes. Some objects give off very bright light. A fire gives off bright light and lights the area nearby. The sun’s light is so bright that it can hurt your eyes, so you should never look directly at the sun!
   
Other objects give off dim light. A glow stick gives off a dim light; a flashlight also gives off light. Sometimes the light is bright, and sometimes the light is dim. Why might someone want to read by a bright light?
   
Lots of things do not give off light. Flowers, buildings, and fences do not give off light, and people and dogs do not give off light, either! You see these things only when light shines on them. When you are outdoors in the daytime, sunlight shines on these objects.
   
When you are indoors in the daytime, sunlight shines through windows or from light from lamps. At night, light from lamps shines on objects. Think about when you open the door to a dark closet just a bit. Without light, you can’t see what is in there, and that can be mysterious! But if you turn on a light, you can see inside the closet, and it’s just some shoes, shirts, dresses, and toys in there. No monsters are in there to threaten you!
   
Some room lights have a dimmer switch, and you can make the light dim, bright, or somewhere in-between. It can be hard to read a book if the light is too caliginous or too bright, so using a dimmer switch can make the light perfect for reading. Think again about the story of the brother looking for his pencil. Why was he under the light from the lamp? What could the older brother do to help find the pencil?

Light And Materials
   
“Remember when we went to the musical concert?” Mr. Ruiz asks. “We saw people and instruments in the bright spotlights. Look at this picture to help you remember. What did you also see under the drums?”
   
The class yells all at once, “Shadows!”
   
How does the shadow in this picture happen? Light shines down on a person; her body blocks the light; then, a darker shape appears behind her. That darker shape is called a shadow, and adumbral areas are darker because there is less light there.
   
A shadow is not an object like a ball, a bike, or a person. You need three things to make a shadow. First, a light that’s shining; second, an object that’s blocking the light; and third, a surface on the other side of the object. Many kinds of materials block light. And all of these materials can be used to make shadows, so they all can block light.
   
This ball is made from rubber bands. The ball blocks light; this bat is made of wood, and wood blocks light; the ball is made of many materials; the ball blocks light, too. The stones are objects, and they block light. Other materials block only some light. They let some light pass through to the surface behind them. There may be a shadow, but it will not be as dark.
   
Balloons can be made from different materials. These balloons let some light through. But some materials do not block much light. They let light pass through to the surfaces behind them. You can see well through materials that let all light pass through. Water and clear glass let light pass through. And, of course, air lets the light pass through. You can see a long way into the sky.
   
Light beams move in straight lines. The sun is shining down in this coulee. And the light shines in a straight path. Some objects can change the direction of a light beam, or reflect it. Materials that reflect light beams are often smooth and shiny. Mirrors are good at reflecting light beams. Some mirrors are made of glass with a thin metal coating. Other mirrors are made of shiny metal. When a mirror reflects a light beam, the light changes direction, and it hits a surface in a different place.

Solving Problems With Light Or Sound
   
Mr. Ruiz says to his students, “Do you remember that you were worried about sitting in the last row of the theater? How can people far away see and hear?”
   
The students have many ideas. They talk about a microphone placed near a musician. Maybe there are large speakers in the theater. They also talk about lights that follow the action on stage, i.e., spotlights. How did these tools help the audience to hear and see?
   
Now Mr. Ruiz has big news for his class. They will put on a show for their school! The class votes to tell the story of The Little Red Hen, with music. First, they read the story, and then they talk about their questions. Who wants to sing; who wants to play an instrument; will there be lights and shadows?
   
Next, they plan their show. They want costumes and masks; they want spotlights; they want sound effects. The class also wants the audience to participate with sound. So, the showgoers will make animal sounds during parts of the show. They will say “Uh-oh!” during parts of the show. But there is a problem. How will the players signal the audience to do the parts?
   
Students must solve the problem. So, they need to work together to figure out how to use light or sound to signal to the audience when to participate. The students use three main steps to solve the problem. First, they talk about the problem; second, they come up with a plan; third, they test the plan.
   
Now you know more about light and sound. How would you solve the problem? How could you use light or sound to let audience members know when to make sound effects? How could you let them know when to make a “meow” sound? How could you let them know when to make a “woof” sound? How could you let them know when to make a “cluck” sound? How could you let them know when to make a “quack” sound?

Science In Action – Using Light As A Tool
   
Mr. Ruiz’s class enjoyed using light and sound in their stage performance. His students used light and sound to communicate. But light and sound can be used for other things, too.
   
Mr. Ruiz wants his students to look for more ways that light is useful in unexpected places. They walk to a dentist’s office near their school. The dentist shows them the tools that she uses to care for her patients’ teeth. But how does a dentist use light as a tool? The students are surprised to see that some of the dentist’s tools are tiny, bright lights! One of the tools shines a purple light inside a patient’s mouth. That light then causes changes. It can whiten teeth and harden the fillings in cavities. Another tool of dentists is a laser. That’s a strong, narrow beam of light that’s very powerful. A laser beam can cut through the hard surface of a tooth. The dentist uses the laser tool to repair a tooth. And the dentist says that the laser is an easier method to use than chiseling away with a drill.
   
Back at school, Mr. Ruiz explains that lasers are used for other things, too. Strong lasers can be used to cut metal and other hard materials in factories that make things. And doctors who are performing surgery use lasers.
   
Mr. Ruiz says that a scientist named Gordon Gould invented the laser. Gould did what all scientists do. He started by asking a question. What would happen if a large amount of light energy was focused into one small beam? Asking a question is one of the first steps in the “scientific method.”
    
    
Gordon Gould
   
Gordon Gould was a scientist who studied matter and energy. He was especially interested in how light behaves. The questions that Gordon Gould asked about light led to the invention of the laser. This was one of the most important inventions of the last century. That’s because lasers can be used in lots of ways. Lasers have made many processes faster and easier. They perform tasks over and over again without wearing out in the way that many other tools do.

   
    
+++++
    
    

Electricity And Magnetism
    
Part One: Lightning Outside, Lights Out Inside
   
Eva sets the table for dinner. But outside, there are bright flashes and loud booms! It is stormy. Outside, it is windy and raining. Bolts of lightning flash. And booming thunder follows each bolt.
   
Mom and Dad are in the kitchen. They are cooking. Another zigzag of lightning brightens the sky. Another crack of thunder sounds off after the flash. But all of a sudden, the lights in Eva’s house all go out! The TV in the living room has gone silent. In the kitchen, the microwave has stopped. And the stove light has gone dark. Even the fridge has stopped its soft bombinations. It is all quiet in the house now. All that Eva can hear is the storm outside.
   
“What just happened?” Eva asks Mom and Dad.
   
Dad said, “As Mr. Spock might say on Star Trek, ‘The electrical cloudburst was the causation for debilitating the power output’.”
   
“In simpler terms, a tree limb might have fallen on some electric cables,” Mom adds. “Or lightning might have struck a utility pole.”
   
“Mom, you’re an electrician, right?” Eva asks. “You’re someone who works with electrical stuff? Can you turn the power back on?”
   
“I wish that I could,” Mom says. “But I don’t think that the power will be back on soon. It looks like the whole neighborhood has gone dark.” Mom looks out the window. Eva joins her. They don’t see any lights on in any of the homes on their block. Even the streetlights have gone out. The only light outside comes from the flickering lightning.
   
“It’s a good thing that we were about to finish cooking,” Dad says. “All of our kitchen appliances are electric. We can’t do any more cooking till the electricity comes back on.”
   
“Then tonight, we’ll dine by candlelight!” Mom says. “And after dinner, we will find things to do that don’t need electricity.” Eva tries to think of what they can do with it raining outside and no electricity in the house. Each activity that she can think of inside the dark house depends on electricity in some way!

Part Two: What Things Use Electricity?
   
Eva and Mom decide to play a game while the electricity is off. They will list all of the things that they can find that need electricity to work. They will go from room to room to look. Eva has a thought about how to start the list. She will look for each electrical wall socket that has something plugged into it.
    
    
SAFETY NOTICE.
   
Electricity can be dangerous. Never put anything into an electrical socket. Only adults should plug electrical cords into wall sockets – or remove them – until you are old enough to do that safely yourself.
       
    
In the kitchen, Eva spots the coffee pot and the toaster. Both are plugged into electrical sockets. She looks behind the microwave and sees that it is plugged in, too. Eva does not see a plug for the stove. But she knows that the stove must need electricity. That’s because Dad said that it wouldn’t work while the power was out.
   
Mom tells Eva that the stove and the fridge are both plugged into electrical sockets. They are behind the appliances. Eva puts those on the list.
   
In the living room, Eva sees the lamp plugged into a wall socket. The TV and her video game console are also plugged in. So is the computer. “Mom?” Eva asks. “What about the ceiling fan and light? They don’t work while the electricity is off. But I don’t see where they are plugged in.”
   
“They are connected directly to the house’s electric wires inside the ceiling,” Mom answers.
   
In the bathroom, Eva lists the light and fan as two things that need electricity. Mom tells her to keep looking. Then Eva recalls the hair dryer in the cabinet. It has a cord to plug in. So does the curling iron that Mom sometimes uses on her hair. Eva adds their electric toothbrushes and Dad’s electric shaver to her list, too. These items are a bit different from the other electric things that are on her list so far. They recharge when they’re plugged in. But they don’t have to remain plugged in all the time to work.
   
In Eva’s bedroom, she lists a lamp. Eva has a tabletop fan that plugs in. She also has a night-light. That helps her to see in case she needs to get out of bed in the middle of the night.
    
Mom leads the way to the garage. There, they will find some more electric items. The lawn mower has a long orange cord. The light over the workbench is electric, too. So are all of the power tools that Mom uses. There’s a drill and a saw. Even their garage door needs electricity to open and close. Lots of things need electricity to work!

Part Three: The Two Types Of Electricity
   
Eva has some questions about what is going on tonight. Dad called the storm outside an electrical storm. But the storm made the electricity in the house go out. “Mom, why is it called an electrical storm if it makes our electricity stop working?” Eva asks. “And why can’t you fix it?”
   
Mom smiles. “Those are great questions,” she says. Mom says that there are two types of electricity. One type is called “static” electricity. The other type is “current” electricity. Static electricity occurs on the surfaces of objects. Two materials that are rubbed together may become charged with static electricity. What happens when you rub a balloon on your hair? It can cause your hair to stick out! The electricity that appliances use in homes is current electricity. Current electricity flows through wires. You may feel a spark of static electricity when you touch a doorknob. What happens when you shuffle your feet across a carpet and then hold one finger close to a doorknob? You might see a little spark of light and hear a sound. You may also feel a little sting or tingle!
   
The surface of a cloud may become charged with static electricity, too. Lightning is a VERY big spark of static electricity. The spark often jumps between clouds. Sometimes the spark jumps from a cloud to the ground. DANGER! This is why thunderstorms are also called electrical storms. You should always stay inside during an electrical storm! If a person gets hit by lightning, it can kill them!
   
Current electricity is not the same as static electricity. Electricity in a current exists in wires. Current electricity connects to homes through big wires called power lines. Here and there, in storms, tree limbs fall on power lines and break them. Lightning can also damage the wires that bring current electricity to homes. What happens when electric current can’t reach homes? The homes lose power. This has happened at Eva’s family’s house. People who work for the power company must get to work. They must find where the power lines are broken. Then they must fix the wires.

Part Four: How Electricity Gets Places
   
Dad has found some flashlights. They will help the family to see in the dark house. He turns one on. He gives one to Eva and one to Mom. Eva’s flashlight will not turn on. “That one must need new batteries,” Mom says. “Here, you can use the hand-crank flashlight. Turn the crank. That will produce the electricity that’s needed to light the bulb.”
   
“There is no power in the house. How come these flashlights work? Don’t all light bulbs need electricity?” asks Eva.
   
“Yes, they do,” Mom says. “But a flashlight does not need to be plugged into a socket. It has electric batteries inside it. That gives the light bulb power. The batteries are another instance of current electricity, too.” Mom explains more. The electricity that is sent to most homes and buildings is produced in large power plants. Current electricity from power plants is present in power lines. The power lines connect to all of the buildings in a community. They go from neighborhoods to stores to office buildings – and lots more.
   
Some power lines hang from utility poles. Others are buried under the ground. Power lines are connected to a house. Current electricity powers all of the sockets and appliances. The current is present in wires inside the walls of the home. Lights and other appliances get electricity by being connected to the house’s wiring. Plugging a lamp into an electrical socket connects the lamp to the house’s electricity.
   
In a similar way, when Mom turns on her flashlight, she allows current electricity to exist. Thus, the light will turn on. It’s like a tiny power plant! But compared to a power plant, a battery creates just a small bit of current electricity. The electricity produced by a battery just lasts for a set amount of time. It does not last forever. The battery will run out. Then it needs to be replaced.
   
Some batteries can be recharged, though. They can be plugged in to connect to the current electricity in the house. Think about cordless items. These could be cell phones and laptop computers. They have rechargeable batteries inside of them. Do you recall the electric toothbrush and Dad’s shaver in Eva’s bathroom? They are two more electric items with rechargeable batteries inside of them.
   
Eva asks her mom, “What is a battery? And how does it work?”

Mom responds, “Another great question! Engineers think of batteries as a place to store electricity in a chemical form. A battery can change chemical energy to electricity. It does that by putting certain chemicals in contact with each other in a specific way. Electrons, which are small parts of atoms, will travel from one kind of chemical to another under the right circumstances. When electrons flow, this makes an electrical current that can power something. What a battery does is put the right chemicals in the right relationships. It then puts a wall between them. Only when the two sides of a battery are connected by a wire or another conductor can the electrons flow.”
   
“Batteries come in several styles. You are likely most familiar with single-use alkaline batteries. As described by the Energizer ® website, ‘The average alkaline AAA, AA, C, D, 9-volt or button-cell battery is made of steel and a mix of zinc / manganese / potassium / graphite. The remaining balance is made up of paper and plastic. Being non-toxic materials, all of these battery ingredients are conveniently recyclable.’
   
And here’s how their website describes a battery’s make-up:”
    
    
“‘Parts of a battery.

The answer to ‘what is inside a battery?’ starts with a breakdown of what makes a battery a battery.
   
Container. A steel can that houses the cell’s ingredients to form the cathode. That’s a part of the electrochemical reaction.
   
Cathode. A combo of manganese dioxide and carbon. Cathodes are the electrodes reduced by the electrochemical reaction.
   
Separator. Non-woven, fibrous fabric that separates the electrodes.
   
Anode. Made of powdered zinc metal. Anodes are electrodes that are oxidized.
   
Electrolyte. Potassium hydroxide solution in water, the electrolyte is the medium for the movement of ions within the cell. It carries the iconic current inside the battery.
   
Collector. Brass pin in the middle of the cell. It conducts electricity to the outside circuit.'”
   
Mom concludes with, “I bet that you didn’t know that there was so much going in inside what you might have thought were ‘simple’ AAA or AA batteries! And sometimes you are personally so energetic – like the Energizer ® Bunny – that I wonder if your chemical make-up isn’t more like a battery’s! Just kidding, of course!”

Part Five: How A Circuit Works
   
It’s been a while since the power in Eva’s house went out. And it still has not come back on. Mom says, “Let’s build an electric circuit. That will help you to learn how electricity works.” She collects some wires, a battery, and a tiny light bulb. They work by the light of the candle. Eva and her mom sit down at the kitchen table to get going on the project.
    
Eva knows that current electricity needs to run through wires. And she knows that a battery can power a light bulb with electricity. But she still has more to learn about what electrical circuits are and how they work. Mom shows Eva how to safely connect one of the wires between the light bulb and one end of the battery. Eva does this. But nothing happens.
   
Then, Mom takes one more wire. She connects it between the light bulb and the other end of the battery. Just like that, the light bulb turns on! Mom says to Eva, “Current electricity has to run through a loop. The loop is called a circuit. What happens when you close the loop? You send the electricity from the battery to the bulb and back. That completes the circuit. That way, current electricity runs through both ends. Thus, it can keep powering the lightbulb!”
   
“Now, think about a light switch,” Mom goes on. “What happens when you flip a switch off and on? You are switching the circuit from an open loop to a closed loop.” A switch that is ON completes the loop in a circuit. Current electricity can exist. A switch that is OFF creates a break in the loop. Current electricity can’t exist.
   
Eva is curious. Why does current electricity stay inside wires? Why doesn’t it go out into the walls and all of the parts of appliances? Mom explains “conductivity.” That means how good something is at conducting, or “letting-run-through-it,” current electricity. Electric wires are made of things that have good conductivity. We call things like these “conductors.”

In houses, current electricity often is in wires made out of copper. Wires are also wrapped in materials with poor conductivity. That keeps the electricity safely inside the wires. Things like rubber don’t conduct electricity well. That’s why wires are mostly kept in rubber. The same is true with clothes and tools designed to protect you from dangerous electricity. Lots of them are made of rubber. We also call things with poor conductivity “insulators.”
   
Eva asks, “Mom, what else would make a good insulator?”
   
Her mom thinks a moment. Then she says, “Glass, oil, asphalt, fiberglass, porcelain, ceramic, quartz, diamond, dry wood, dry cotton, and dry paper.”
   
Eva exclaims, “Wow, Mom, you must be one of the most knowledgeable electricians ever. While you’re on a roll, how about some more good conductors?”
   
Mom says, “Easy-peasy, kiddo. Silver, copper, gold, aluminum, iron, steel, brass, bronze, mercury, graphite, and concrete. Is that enough for you?”
   
Eva grins and says, “Yes, Mom. Now my brain hurts!”
   
But Mom forgot to list one biggie. She said, “Honey, I left out something else simple and ubiquitous that is a good conductor. Water! The human body is made up of over 60 percent water! That’s why electricity is very dangerous. Don’t ever use anything electrical near or in water!”
   
Eva asks, “So, what if you were in the bathtub full of water? And you had some electrical appliance that was plugged in and sitting on your sink? And it then fell into the water while you were in it? Could you get electrocuted?”
   
Mom responds, “It depends on the situation. But it is absolutely possible. Never take chances like that!! Unplug anything that’s near water! There has probably been more than one mystery thriller written where the murderer has figured out how to do that to their victim and kill them!”
   
Eva furrows her brow and says, “That’s gruesome. What a way to go!”
   
Mom responds, “Yeah, so don’t write any books like that when you grow up. Stick to ‘dog disappears at family vacation rental – 500 miles from home – and shows back up at home six months later, healthy and happy.’ There’s some good, wholesome novel fare for you!”

Part Six: Magnets And Electricity
   
The storm is starting to end. But it looks like the electricity will be out all night at Eva’s house. This makes Dad worried. What about the fridge and the freezer? Without electricity, they won’t stay cold. Then they can’t protect the food inside of them. It would be bad – and expensive – if they let all of their cold and frozen foods spoil.
   
But they are in luck. Dad has a great thought. Eva’s family has an electrical generator. They use that when they go camping. The generator burns gasoline. That’s like in a car engine. That makes a motor run. And it produces electricity. Dad plugs the fridge into the generator. He keeps the generator outside for good ventilation.
   
“Do you recall what power lines do? They bring electricity to our house,” Dad says. “They come from a power plant that generates electricity. The power plant uses generators like this one to make electricity. They’re a lot larger than this one, though. You’ve even used a small generator of your own tonight. And you did not even know it yet,” Dad adds with a smile. “It’s that small hand-crank flashlight.”
   
Eva learns more. When one turns the hand crank on the flashlight, it rotates parts inside. They are made of magnets and coiled wire. Moving the wire near the magnet causes a current to start in the wire. Now Eva sees why the light does not last long after she stops cranking the handle. What if the current in the wire stops? Well, the electricity doesn’t run to the light bulb.
   
The generator works in a similar way. Parts inside made of magnets and coiled wire will spin. The rotation creates electric current in the wire. Electric motors and generators both need magnets to work. You’ll recall that with magnets come magnetic forces. They invisibly push and pull on other magnets and metal objects. Two magnets with the same side facing each other will push each other away. Two magnets with opposite sides that face each other will pull together.
   
Electric motors use electricity and magnets to make parts move. That’s like with a desk fan. Generators, on the other hand, use magnets and rotating parts to make electricity.
   
Eva says, “I’m glad that we have that generator, Dad. How much did it cost us?”
   
Dad says, “Well, you can get them in lots of sizes at lots of different price points. This one was about $1,700. But it’s an expense well worth it for safeguarding one’s family. That’s especially in cases where it’s the middle of winter and brutally cold. Think about the electricity being out for days because of a blizzard. With the generator, you won’t freeze to death.”

Part Seven: Science In Action – A Day With An Electrician
   
The electricity at Eva’s house came back on during the night. This morning she is excited. That’s because she gets to go to work with Mom for a while. Since her mom is an electrician, she’s going to show Eva how she puts electric wires inside the walls of a house while the house is being built.
   
Mom starts by showing Eva the new house’s electric panel. This is the place where electricity from power lines enters the house. The box is inside the house this time. But on some homes, it is on one of the outside walls.
   
Mom needs to attach wires to this box. She then runs them through the walls to all of the home’s electrical wall sockets and ceiling light fixtures. Before Mom attaches wires to the panel, she must make sure that the electricity coming into the panel is turned off!
   
Eva doesn’t touch the electrical panel while Mom works on it. Electricity is dangerous. It should only be handled by adults!
   
Construction of a wall begins with a wood or metal frame. Eva’s mom does her work while the wall frames are still exposed. She drills holes to make room for the wires to run through. She pulls wires all over the house. That’s to each place where people might need to plug things in.
   
Mom shows Eva how she installs an electrical socket. She attaches a box that holds the socket to the wall frame. Then she shows Eva the wire’s white plastic coating.
   
Inside are three wires that are wrapped together. Mom separates those wires. She then strips the plastic coating off of them. She exposes shiny copper wire that is on the inside. She attaches the bare copper ends to the socket with screws.
   
Mom makes sure that the wiring in the house has loops. That’s so that current electricity can exist. Later, workers will add flat surfaces to the walls. Then, only the socket will be visible. All of the wiring will be hidden within the walls.

Mom also takes this opportunity to explain to Eva what a fuse box is. She says, “Do you see this box with a bunch of what look like black light switches? This is a fuse box. Each switch is connected to smaller areas of the house where electricity is flowing to. For instance, this switch is connected to everything electrical that’s in just the kitchen.”
   
“A more formal description of a fuse box is something like this. ‘Fuse boxes are very simple. Yet they are intelligently designed devices that work by powering the electrical current through a piece of metal strip. When the power of the electrical current goes beyond the limitations of the metal strip, the strip will melt and cease to provide electrical power.’ In other words, the little fuse is a circuit. So, what if a spike of electricity – perhaps from a nearby lightning strike – hits that fuse? It will open the circuit to turn off the electric current to that area of the house.”
   
“In the last house we lived in, I had an experience that taught me close-hand the value of a fuse box. I was in one of the rooms vacuuming. I plugged the vacuum cleaner into a wall socket that I’d never used before. As soon as I turned on the vacuum, BOOM! There was a mini-explosion where the plug was in the wall socket. It actually turned the socket plate black!”
   
“We found out that the electricians who had wired the house had totally botched the wiring into that room. Let me keep it overly simple. There was way more current coming in to that socket than should have been. The fuse sensed that. So, it quickly opened the circuit to shut off the flow of the electric current. If it had not, the excessive current would have continued to flow. That would have “fried” the vacuum cleaner itself! So, you see that a fuse box is actually a very important safety feature inside a house!”
   
Wow! Eva has learned a whole lot about electricity in the last couple of days, hasn’t she?

   
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)   
   

Lesson 34 – Geography of the Americas

    
NEW WORDS: Aires, Arenal, Atacama, Atitlan, Bolivar, Buenos, Caribbeans, Chato, Cinchoma, Gorgas, Granada, Granada’s, Guatemalan, Guatemalans, Guianan, Havana, Hoatzin, Ilopango, Incahuasi, Iquitos, Magellan, Patagonia, Peruvian, Quito, Rico’s, Salar, Titicaca, Topeka, Torres, Uyuni, agave, agouti, airports, appressed, arabica, aroids, attractions, barges, begonias, biodiversity, breadfruit, campgrounds, cashew, cataract, centermost, clearings, craboo, cultivatable, desertlike, eliminating, epiphytes, excursioned, explosivity, exporter, flats, gauchos, guaya, harlequin, improves, irregularities, lengthiness, lichens, marmoset, multifarious, orchids, otherworldly, pampas, peregrinating, propeller, ranching, rotor, sapote, sightseeing, soursop, southerly, starfruit, stockbreeding, superhighways, tamarin, tango, teatime, turbine, uakari, westernmost, yerba, yuccas, zipline  
   
   

Geography of the Americas

Chapter One: Using Maps
   
Maps come in all sizes and hues. And they show lots of multifarious things. Some maps might show someone how to get to a park. Some maps show land features. They let you see mountains and valleys. Some maps show info about the weather. Others show a country. And, of course, there are maps of the whole world!
   
It does not matter what kind of map you are looking at. You always need to know where north, south, east, and west are. Maps have something called a compass on them. They can also be called a compass rose. A compass rose points to north, south, east, and west. Those are the four main directions. Do you have a map in your home? If so, take a look at it. Can you find a compass rose on it?
   
Maps also have lots of symbols. They stand for special places and things. For instance, dots often show where cities are on a map. Some maps might have small dots for small cities. And they’ll have big dots for big cities. A star on the map might show a capital city. Small details may show things such as airports, campgrounds, forests, and railroads. Triangles (sometimes with no bottom sides) often show mountains. And wavy (often blue) lines show rivers. Roads are shown, too. Lots of varied kinds of maps are made in many ways. And not all of them will look the same. But don’t fret! Most maps will have a key. That’s also called a legend. It shows what each map symbol means.

Chapter Two: The U.S. and Canada
   
We’ll look at the geography of the Americas. Let’s pretend that we’ll go on a road trip. We’ll start in North America. That’s the continent with the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and the countries of Central America.
   
Let’s say that you live in Topeka, Kansas. For this road trip, the first part will be to go through the U.S. and up to Ottawa. That is Canada’s capital city. On the road ahead are lots of places for great sightseeing. We’ll drive past the hills of Missouri. We’ll head to the mighty Mississippi River. That’s the longest river in North America. Your trip starts just as the sun rises in the sky!
   
Just a few hours pass. Now you’ve reached the Mississippi. It almost perfectly splits the U.S. into two parts, west and east. You spot tugboats in the water. They’re pushing large barges up and down the river. Your mom says to you that the barges carry important goods. There might be grain from the Great Plains, where you live. Or there could be oil and coal from the states to the east. The barges stop at ports along the Mississippi. There, they unload some of these goods. Then they load new ones on. These goods are taken all across the U.S. Some head to places across the whole world.
   
The lengthiness of the Mississippi River is hard to imagine. It’s over 2,300 miles long! And there are lots more rivers that feed into it. Three big ones are the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Arkansas Rivers. Each of them is also long, in their own right. These mighty rivers are how lots of goods from the states deep inside the U.S. are shipped around the world.
   
The U.S. has fifty states. Forty-eight of them are contiguous, or together. The states of Alaska and Hawaii are much further away from the others. Even though most of the states are appressed together, though, you don’t have time to see them all. But your road trip will take you along the highways east of the Mississippi. You’ll go through Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Soon, you come to West Virginia. You see the lush Appalachian Mountains on the horizon. They’re getting closer and closer to you. Then the highways start to climb through them. There are lots and lots of mountains in West Virginia. Do you see now why its nickname is the “Mountain State?” The tallest of them is called Spruce Knob. It is five-thousand feet tall. It’s not as tall as mountains in other places on the globe. But West Virginia has lots more mountains to see. More than half of the state is covered in forests, as well.

The road trip has been long. By now, you and your family have excursioned for three days. But there are way more superhighways left for you to cross. Your trip now takes you to the north. You’ll go through the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. By the evening, you’ve come to the shores of the huge Lake Erie. You hear the waves crashing. And you see the sparkling water. You can’t see a thing on the other side of the lake. But your parents tell you that Canada is that way. The next day, it will be a quick trip through New York. And then you’ll be in another country! Lake Erie is big. But it’s not the only big lake around. It’s part of the five Great Lakes. Along with Lake Erie, there’s Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Lake Ontario.
   
The next morning, you’re back on the road. You soon come to the Canadian border. The border guards make sure that you can cross safely. Not long after that, you’re now in Canada. On the long trip, you’ve spent time reading about Canada. You’ve found out that it is the world’s second-largest country in landmass. It’s second only to Russia. Canada is not made up of states. But it is split into regions called provinces. There are also a few regions called territories. There are ten provinces and three territories. Ottawa is in the province of Ontario. It’s the capital of Canada. And you’ll be there soon. 
   
Meanwhile, you’ve also found that fewer people live in Canada than the U.S. The U.S. has over 330 million people. Canada has just 40 million people. This is because not much of Canada’s land is good for farming. Much of its land in the north gets quite cold in the wintertime. So, most Canadians live in the south, near the U.S. border. It’s still cold there, too. But it’s less cold than the far north.
   
But some folks do live in the far north. Let’s look at the territory of Nunavut. That’s near the Arctic Ocean. These native people are called the Inuit. They have lived there for 1000s of years, hunting and fishing in the snowy lands. They use snowmobiles and sleds pulled by dogs to get around.

Like the U.S. does, Canada stretches all the way across North America. That’s from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The easternmost province is called Newfoundland. And the westernmost province is called British Columbia. (The names are simple. Newfoundland is just that. It’s a newly found land. British Columbia is an older name. That’s from when the British owned Canada. The other part of “Columbia” became the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington.)
   
The great Rocky Mountains run through the eastern part of British Columbia. They spread into the province of Alberta. These Rocky Mountains are the same ones that spread south through the U.S. These are states like Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. Canada has open grasslands, or prairies, in parts of the south. There, herds of peregrinating buffalo and antelope can be found.
   
The northwestern part of Canada is split into three territories. These are the Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. The Yukon Territory is named for the Yukon River. It flows through Canada and Alaska. The Yukon River is the third longest river in North America. That’s after the Missouri and the Mississippi.
   
You’ve driven for hours. Now you get to Ottawa. It is late at night. You drive through Parliament Hill. That’s where the parliament buildings are lit brightly beneath the night sky. The Canadian Parliament is the seat of government in Canada. That’s just as the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. is the home of the U.S. Congress. It has been a great road trip. And you have learned lots of fun facts about the U.S. and Canada. You can’t wait for your next adventure!

Chapter Three: Mexico
   
Mexico is on the southern border of the U.S. It has the world’s largest number of Spanish speakers. Yes, that’s more than Spain itself! It is made up of states like the U.S. There are 31 of them. Most Mexicans live in the centermost part of the country. That’s around the capital of Mexico City. The northern part of the country is drier than the south. Since it’s dry in the north, farmers use irrigation to bring water to their crops. Lots of cacti and yuccas grow in this part of the country. (A yucca is a plant that’s in the agave family. It has pointed, rigid, sword-shaped leaves and clusters of white, waxy flowers.)
   
You’ve learned of this region in past lessons. This used to be the center of Aztec life. But now, Mexico City does not look much like Tenochtitlan. That was the main city in Moctezuma’s day. But some of the ruins of the Aztec city are still there. The Spanish did not settle in just Mexico. They went to much of Central and South America, as well. This is why Spanish is spoken in this part of the world. (The language is not just like the Spanish that’s spoken in Europe. Lots of years have passed. Local changes have been made. But all of the Spanish dialects are still quite close.)
   
Let’s say that Moctezuma took a trip beyond his old city. He went out to the lands that he once ruled. What might look the same? Well, the land would not have changed. Much of the land is a plateau. And there are lots of mountains. Much of the food grown would be the same, too. He’d see lots of corn (called maize). And he’d see the beans, squash, and fruits that grow in the rich soil. This soil is mixed with ash. That came from past volcanoes.
   
But what would Moctezuma think of today’s factories that are there? They make cars, machines, metals, clothing, and other goods. What about the oil that’s sold to the whole world? These are things that he did not have in his day. To be fair, no one else had them, either. He might be sad that the Aztecs were conquered by the Spanish. But he might also be proud of the successful country that Mexico is now.

Chapter Four: Central America
   
South of Mexico you’ll find Central America. It’s a thin region of land. And there are lots of mountains. It connects North and South America. (If you want to be picky, it’s really on the continent of North America.) 
   
Central America, like Mexico, was settled by the Spanish. Way back, it was all a single country. But now it’s made up of seven countries. The northernmost one is Guatemala. It’s a mountainous land. It has three active volcanoes. It has lush rainforests. And it is home to Lake Atitlan. That’s the deepest lake in Central America. The Spanish, of course, were not the first natives here. Lots of Guatemalans are descendants of the Maya. They had built a huge empire. They had great cities and tall pyramids. And that was 100s of years before the Aztec built their empire in Mexico. Maya farmers grew maize and beans. These are still mainstay foods now. But today’s Guatemalan farmers are known, too, for their tasty coffee beans and bananas. They also produce sugar. They sell these products to countries around the world.
   
The country of Belize is east of Guatemala. Belize is not quite like the rest of Central America. It was a British colony, not a Spanish one. Much of this country is draped with a thick rainforest full of wildlife. Bananas and citrus fruits are key crops. They grow a number of exotic fruits that aren’t that well known north of their country. These fruits are the guaya, dragon fruit, sapodilla, soursop, breadfruit, sapote, craboo, cashew fruit, and starfruit.
   
The country of Honduras is the 2nd largest country in Central America. It has high mountains, rainforests, and low coastal lands. It is the only country in the region that does not have active volcanoes. Scientists travel to Honduras to learn about the plants and animals in the cloud forests. Cloud forests are high-altitude rainforests. The trees in cloud forests are often short, weathered, and crooked. Mosses, lichens, and other epiphytes such as orchids, aroids, and ferns cover the trunks and branches of these trees. Begonias, ferns, and other herbaceous plants grow in clearings. They often grow to quite a large size.

Let’s move next to the west region on the Pacific. Here we find El Salvador. It is the smallest country in the region. Though small, it is known as the “Land of the Volcanoes.” Twenty of them are still active! The ash from the volcanoes is good for farmers’ corn, rice, and bean crops. The ash improves the soil. Most known among their volcanoes is Ilopango! The Ilopango Caldera is one of the most dangerous volcanoes on Earth. Not only is it just 10 kilometers from San Salvador City, but over 3,000,000 people live within 30 kilometers of this monster. The volcano itself is a 13-kilometer by 17-kilometer hole in the ground. It was produced by lots of caldera-forming eruptions over the past 57,000 or so years. The current caldera is filled by a lake. That could perhaps add to the explosivity of eruptions.
   
Nicaragua is next. It is close to the size of the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest country in Central America. It, too, has active volcanoes. And it is often shaken by earthquakes. It is a land of strong winds, hot sun, and active volcanoes. Its people use these natural resources. For instance, there are lots of wind turbines there. Wind turbines work on a simple principle. They don’t use electricity to make wind, like a fan. Wind turbines have the opposite purpose. They use wind to make electricity. Wind turns the propeller-like blades of a turbine around a rotor. That spins a generator, which creates electricity. The Earth’s winds are a form of solar energy. They’re caused by a combo of three concurrent events. These are the sun unevenly heating the atmosphere, irregularities of the Earth’s surface, and the rotation of the Earth.
   
The country of Costa Rica is next. It is south of Nicaragua and north of Panama. It has two huge mountain ranges. And it has coastlines on both the Atlantic and the Pacific. Costa Rica has active volcanoes, too. Two of them named Arenal and Chato are in one of their National Parks. Another thing that the country is known for is biodiversity. A quarter of its geography is made up of protected jungle. The jungle is teeming with wildlife. You’ll find creatures like spider monkeys, quetzal birds, agouti, harlequin toads, etc. Tourism is crucial for Costa Rica. Folks from all over the world go there. There are all kinds of great outdoor recreational activities. There are pristine beaches. And lots of folks zipline through the cloud forests.

The southernmost country is Panama. It is a narrow strip of land. It has a few large lakes. And it is the site of the great Panama Canal. Long ago, when a boat wished to get to Asia from Europe, or vice versa, it would have to go all the way around the southern tip of South America. Ships would have to navigate the stormy, unpredictable Strait of Magellan. It was a long journey. It was some 8,000 extra miles! It was a dangerous trip, too. But in the early 1900s, the U.S. built a huge canal for ships to pass through. It went right through Panama. The French had tried to do this in the late 1800s. But they gave up. There were huge challenges for the workforce. This was largely due to lots of cases of yellow fever and malaria. Dr. William Gorgas, from the U.S., had a lot of positive impact on eventually eliminating the yellow fever issues and reducing the incidence of malaria. Today, 1,000s of ships pass through the canal. This lets them avoid the long trip around South America’s tip.
   
Now we head to the waters south of the U.S. – and north of Central and South America. Here, there is a large group of isles called the Caribbeans. They are dotted around the Caribbean Sea. The islands have lots of countries in them. You may be aware of Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. Another island is Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is part of the U.S. But it is not a U.S. state. It’s a self-governing territory. (That has not stopped people from trying to make Puerto Rico a state. This is something that continues on to this day!) Puerto Rico’s capital is San Juan. Another U.S. territory in the Caribbean is the U.S. Virgin Islands. Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean. Its capital is Havana. It’s just 80 miles across the sea from Key West, Florida. Key West is the southernmost point in the U.S!

Chapter Five: South America
    
South America is made up of 12 countries. The largest of them is, by far, Brazil. It is just a bit smaller than the U.S. That’s in terms of landmass. Over half of the continent lives there. Brazil is not the same as the rest of the continent. It was settled by the Portuguese. So, that’s the language that they speak. They don’t speak Spanish, like most of the countries south of the U.S.
    
The largest mountain range here is the Andes. Its highest peak is called Aconcagua. It’s the highest peak in the world that’s not in Asia. It’s some 23,000 feet high! This peak is in the country of Argentina. Another natural wonder in the Andes is Lake Titicaca. That’s the highest and largest lake in South America. It’s split by the border of two countries. They are Peru and Bolivia. A third wonder is the Amazon River. It’s one of the top-two longest rivers in the world. It’s some 4,000 miles long. That’s some twice the length of the Mississippi! (It’s either the longest or second-longest river in the world. The Nile River in Africa is about the same length. There are still debates about which river is longer.)
   
Much of the world’s largest tropical rainforest is in Brazil. It is called the Amazon Rainforest. That’s because the Amazon River (and other rivers) wind their way through the hot, steamy forest. This rainforest is home to millions of varied kinds of plants and animals. And lots of them you can’t find elsewhere in the world. Some of them are the bald uakari, the golden lion tamarin, the green anaconda, and the pygmy marmoset. A couple of their unique birds are the Guianan cock-of-the-rock and the Hoatzin. Large parts of the rainforest have been cut down. That has been for its lumber. The rainforest is also being cleared. That’s so that the land can be used for farming, ranching, etc.
   
Cutting down parts of the rainforest is not something that lots of folks want to do, though. There is fear that cutting down so many trees will harm the planet. It will make it harder to absorb the carbon dioxide that the world creates. This would speed up global warming. Further, recall that lots of plants and animals live in the Amazon. They can’t live elsewhere in the world. Thus, they might die out. One of them is the see-through glass frog. One is the Cinchoma plant, which is used in medicine.

Let’s start in the north of South America. We’ll look at the countries of Colombia and Venezuela. Northern Colombia sits on the Caribbean Sea. Western Colombia is on the Pacific Ocean. Colombia is famed for its aromatic Arabica coffee. And it’s the fourth-largest producer of coffee in the world. They’re known, too, for superior quality emeralds and exotic fruits. Venezuela is on the northern coast of South America. It has two seasons. There’s a rainy season and a dry season. It is home to the world’s highest waterfall. That’s Angel Falls. These falls have a cataract that drops 3,212 feet. And it is 500 feet wide at the base. They also have the second longest river in South America. That’s the Orinoco. It also has the longest coastline along the Caribbean sea. Venezuela is the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter. And it also has vast untapped reserves of natural gas.
   
Long ago, Venezuela, Colombia, and the country of Ecuador were all part of a Spanish colony. That was called New Granada. (The “old” Granada was a region of Spain.) Lots of Spanish colonies were inspired by the success of the U.S. in gaining its freedom. New Granada was one of them. They fought Spain to get their freedom. In the early 1800s, a man named Simon Bolivar helped lead New Granada’s fight. In 1821, New Granada won their freedom from Spain. So did the country of Gran Colombia. This fight was also led by Bolivar. But Gran Colombia only stayed together for ten years. Then it split up. Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador became new countries.
   
Large parts of the countries of Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia are high up in the Andes. More than half of the people here are indigenous people. They have lived there for quite a long time. The equator runs right through Ecuador. In fact, that’s where Ecuador gets its name. It’s the Spanish word for equator!
   
You might think that Ecuador is hot. That’s because it’s on the equator. Well, you are partly right. Part of Ecuador is on the Pacific coast. There, it is hot and wet. But you can find snow right on the equator, in Ecuador. The mountain peaks are quite high. And the air is so cold that the snow there never melts. Because it is hot and wet on the coast, it is a good place to grow bananas. Ecuador grows and sells more bananas than any other country on the continent. And they are one of the world’s largest growers of cacao. That is the main ingredient for chocolate. Quito, the capital, is the 2nd-highest capital city in the world. It rests at 9,350 feet above sea level.

Peru has a coast on the Pacific. Part of the Andes range is also in Peru. This is also where the mighty Amazon River begins. That’s at the city of Iquitos. Ships from the Atlantic Ocean sail 1,000s of miles up the Amazon. They head to Iquitos to deliver and take goods. This means that Peru can send goods across both the Pacific and the Atlantic. Peru is endowed with notable attractions that you might love to see. They claim one of the “Seven Wonders of the World,” Machu Picchu. And there are the mysterious Nazca Lines in the Peruvian desert. 
   
Moving on, a large part of Bolivia is high up in the Andes. Most folks there live in the mountains. Bolivia has more indigenous people than any other country on the continent. The largest salt flats in the world are also in Bolivia. They are called “Salar de Uyuni.” They lie amid the Andes in southwest Bolivia. This area is the legacy of a prehistoric lake that went dry. It left behind a desertlike, nearly 11,000-square-kilometer landscape of bright-white salt, rock formations, and cacti-studded islands. Its otherworldly expanse can be observed from central Incahuasi Island. Wildlife is rare in this unique ecosystem. But, oddly, it does harbor many pink flamingos. 
   
Chile is the longest and most narrow country in the world. It runs down the west coast of South America. Chile is just about sixty miles wide. But it is more than 4,000 miles long. Cape Horn is the most southerly point in the country. Chile is also home to the Atacama Desert. This is the driest desert in the world. It is so dry that in some places, nothing at all lives there. No plants, no animals – nothing. Torres del Paine National Park is one of the most visited attractions in Chile. It boasts crystal lakes, snow-capped mountains, and icy glaciers. It’s easy to see why it is a popular tourist destination.
   
East of Chile are Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This is a region of large, flat, plains. Grasses grow that spread from Argentina to Uruguay. These plains are called the Pampas. The Pampas is a lot like the Great Plains in the U.S. In fact, cowboys called “gauchos” still herd cattle on the Pampas.

Argentina is known for its passion for soccer, mate culture (a local drink that’s served in a social setting loosely similar to teatime in England), and a love for Tango dancing. There are stunning natural landscapes in Patagonia. There is a vibrant city life in Buenos Aires. Thus, the country offers a unique experience for travelers. Argentina is also famed for its good wines, tasty food, and world-renowned landmarks.
   
In Paraguay, agriculture and stockbreeding make up the main economic activities of the country. Their key crops include soybeans, wheat, sugarcane, cotton, corn, tobacco, and the yerba mate herb. They also grow a large range of tropical fruits and vegetables. Paraguay is one of the world’s top producers of soybeans. This is an important crop used to feed farm animals. Soybeans are used in lots of the foods that we eat, too.
   
Finally, Uruguay is known as one of Latin America’s more progressive societies. It is noted for its political stability, advanced social legislation, and a relatively large middle class. It is also famed for its beaches and good cultivatable lands. 
   
We have come to the end of our trip. It’s fun to learn about the world in which we live. But it’s important, too! The more that we know about our world, the more we will understand how to care for it – and for each other. So, be aware that books will take you wherever you wish to go. And they will teach you lots of the things that you need to know.
   
Happy travels!

   
   
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Lesson 35 – Prefixes 04: “IN-“

    
The prefix “IN-” means “no / not” or “in / on.” The first is much easier to understand. Examples for “no / not”: “independent” means “not dependent”; “insane” means “not sane.” Example for “in / on”: “sinuate” means “winding or wavy,” so “insinuate” means “on a wavy path” or “in a winding – not direct – way” (to insinuate something about a person is to “artfully plant doubt about them” without being bluntly direct). In words like this, it’s likely that you have to go to “word origin” meanings to make sense of the “in / on” meaning of the prefix. For instance, the Latin root “gress” means “step” or “move.” “Ingress” means “the act of going in or entering.” So, perhaps a good way to pull this one together is to call it “stepping or moving in order to go inside.”    
   
     
NEW WORDS: Alana, Angelo, Armie, Ashton, Avery, Blackwell, Blanche, Bradley, Bradley’s, Bryant, Cardenas, Christensen, Clayton, Darryl’s, Daugherty, Dyer, Elias, Ernest, Gerald, Harvard’s, Juanita, Kelsey, Lithuania, Rosalie, Scrooge’s, Selma, Swinnerton, admittedly, archbishop, auctioneer, befalls, beverage, billing, boss’s, charitable, coding, combustion, craftsmanship, degenerating, directionally, donations, exemplified, hackers, heavyweight, hideout, history’s, hospice, inaccuracy, inadmissible, inadvertently, inalterable, inanimate, inapplicable, inapt, inarguable, inarticulate, inaudible, inauspicious, inboard, inbound, incalculable, incapability, incapacitate, incapacity, incivility, inclement, incognizance, incoherent, incommutable, incomparably, incompetent, incompletely, inconclusive, incongruence, inconsistent, inconsolably, inconstant, inconvenient, incorrect, indecency, indecisive, indecorous, indefensible, indefinite, indelicate, indifference, indigestion, indiscreet, indisposed, indisputable, indwell, inearth, inedible, ineducable, ineffable, inefficient, inelastic, inelegant, ineligible, ineludible, inequitable, ineradicable, inexact, inexcusable, inexperience, inexplicable, inextricable, infeasible, inflexible, inflight, infrequent, inglorious, ingratitude, ingrown, inimitable, inlaid, innocuous, inoffensive, inoperable, inorganic, inroads, insanitary, inseam, insensate, insentient, insipid, insobriety, insole, insoluble, insolvable, intact, intangible, intolerant, invalidate, invariable, inviolable, invisibility, invitees, overcook, passenger’s, penchant, politician’s, programmers, pulsars, qualifying, quell, rehearsal, rematerialize, sabbatical, steakhouse, tendencies, thermodynamics, toenail, transporter, trouser
   
   

Alana called the utility company and told them about the inaccuracy of her latest billing statement.
   
Clayton couldn’t contain his ineffable joy when he was accepted into Harvard’s med school.
   
The many witnesses who said that Bradley was at the party validated Bradley’s incognizance of the shooting incident that had occurred across town.
   
Our boss’s indecisive tendencies got him a low 360-degree review among his peers.
   
We had to cancel our golf round due to inclement weather.
   
His crimes were so severe that the judge made his life sentence incommutable.
   
As the enemy approached our city limits, we all fled town since it was indefensible.
   
Since I am totally tone deaf, my music professor said that I should not take the course for a grade, but that I should take it pass / fail.
   
Inorganic substances are a group of chemicals that do not contain any carbon.
   
During her 3-night hospital stay, Rosalie was shocked by the insanitary conditions in her room.
   
Ashton, it is inexcusable to be belching at the dinner table!
   
That poor kid has an incapability of going on a bike ride without falling off at least one time.
   
This kind of “evidence” would be inadmissible in any court of law.
   
Dr. Bryant is going on a sabbatical for an indefinite period of time.
   
My yoga instructor was surprised by how inflexible my body is.

Ms. Cardenas is indisposed right now, so let’s schedule an appointment for tomorrow morning.
   
The scientists were frustrated that the results from their two-year research project were inconclusive.
   
It is probably infeasible to ever create a transporter device (like in Star Trek) that will successfully dematerialize and then rematerialize living beings from one location to another.
   
The reasons that combustion engines are so inefficient are due to consequences of the laws of thermodynamics.
   
I’m afraid that this appointment time is now inconvenient for me.
   
Mr. Daugherty is so drunk that he’s completely incoherent; good luck understanding a word that he says.
   
Harry Potter put on his invisibility cloak to slip past Mr. Filch.
   
I’m afraid that your degree of inexperience will keep you from qualifying for this job.
   
My inconstant frenemies just embarrassed me in front of my girlfriend.
   
Did you know that crows are as good at reasoning as a human seven-year-old child; but they are ineducable beyond that point.
   
Selma said that she was inadequately prepared for the math exam.
   
The CEO said, “I’m afraid that we’re going to have to fire Christensen; he’s just totally incompetent.”
   
Was that bright flash in the sky an inanimate object, or was it life forms flying a UFO?
   
The airline passenger’s behavior on the flight was so indelicate that the police took him away after he landed and charged him with “disturbing the peace.”
   
It would have been indiscreet of me to ask her if she was pregnant, because she might have just been overweight.

Our neighbors’ dog Rover passed away yesterday, and they will inearth him in the woods behind their home.
   
The Colonel yelled to her troops, “Get down, I see an inbound missile!”
   
Four-year-old Armie surprised his parents by saying, “The way that you treat me and Kelsey is inequitable; you let her get away with lots more than you let me get away with.”
   
I hate scented candles, but the fragrance of the one that my wife just bought is pretty inoffensive.
   
It’s an indisputable fact that the Earth is round, and not flat.
   
Son, you’ve done the chores that I assigned to you pretty incompletely; I expect higher quality work from you in the future.
   
Disagreement over this issue is fierce, sometimes degenerating into ludicrous levels of incivility.
   
The wizard said, “Once I cast this spell for you, the potential future consequences for you are inalterable.”
   
Please don’t make me give the presentation; I’m an inarticulate speaker.
   
The President said, “I wish that we could incapacitate our enemies’ computer hackers.”
   
As the politician’s crimes were made publicly available, it signaled an inglorious end to his political career.
   
These odd signals that we’re picking up from outer space are currently inexplicable, but we’re not ruling out communication from another life form.
   
I have a rip in the inseam of my right trouser leg.
   
In the quote, don’t list all costs line-by-line; instead, inboard them and present the quotation as one total package cost.
   
This insipid soup is close to tasteless, which is not acceptable for a restaurant that is so venerated.

These boots have an extra felt insole so that you can make them warmer on the coldest days.
   
There have been so many cultural changes in the last few decades that there can be an incongruence between today’s youth and the beliefs and values of their grandparents.
   
His curses at me would be inapt for me to repeat in front of the children.
   
The inlaid wood design on this antique desk demonstrates impeccable craftsmanship.
   
Avery is completely intolerant of hot, humid weather.
   
The doctor said that Mrs. Blackwell has inoperable cancer, and she will be entering hospice care shortly.
   
The Native American was so adept at hunting quietly in the woods that his footsteps were virtually inaudible.
   
This new health product from Lithuania is starting to make inroads into the American marketplace.
   
The Vice-President will assume command in the case of any incapacity that befalls the President.
   
Among the Queen’s nobles, any shows of ingratitude towards the gifts that she has given them will be viewed as a perilous lack of loyalty on their part.
   
The businessmen were shocked by Scrooge’s indifference to poverty when he refused to provide them with any charitable donations during the Christmas season.
   
There are many intangible benefits to living here that are hard to describe; you just have to be here for a while to experience this for yourself.
   
The programmers came up with some admittedly inelegant coding patches to fix the software glitches, but at least it got things up and running again.
   
Ernest had to finally recognize the ineludible fact that Juanita was never going to go out on a date with him.
   
There is a virtually incalculable number of single grains of sand on the Earth’s beaches.

These kinds of arguments are inapplicable in this category of legal cases.
   
The chef at the steakhouse is inconsistent, and too often he will overcook the meat.
   
In my opinion, it’s inarguable that Ali is history’s greatest heavyweight boxer.
   
Sorry Angelo, but you’re ineligible to play on the team until you get your grades up.
   
How can an insentient object like a computer appear to be so intelligent?
   
The timing of my getting the flu was inauspicious, as it kept me from playing in the championship game.
   
Everyone got nervous when the preacher started to tell a joke, but it fortunately turned out to be innocuous.
   
The princess was incomparably beautiful as she entered the ballroom of the gala.
   
The auctioneer made a comment so indecorous that we’ll never hire him again.
   
The boy’s lack of table manners exemplified the height of indecency.
   
Uncle Darryl’s long-term problems with insobriety finally cost him his job.
   
I’m glad that I caught this error; I had inadvertently left Aunt Blanche off of the list of invitees to the rehearsal dinner, and now she’s been invited.
   
Poor Uncle Gerald sometimes gets kidney stones; thank goodness these bouts are infrequent.
   
My mom weeps inconsolably at funerals, no matter who they are for.
   
The pilot announced, “We may now begin our inflight beverage service.”

There are said to be seven insolvable math problems, such as the “Birch and Swinnerton–Dyer conjecture.”
   
Gag me with a spoon; this food is entirely inedible.
   
The Emperor claimed that his secret hideout was inviolable, and that he would always be safe whenever he was there.
   
The brutal dictator’s heart was as insensate as a slab of marble.
   
The Christmas tree lights seemed to be tangled into an inextricable knot.
   
Almost nothing ticks me off more than having a painful ingrown toenail.
   
Our son Elias seems to have an ineradicable penchant for getting into trouble.
   
Despite the strength of the earthquake, our house seemed to get through it totally intact.
   
Shakespeare seems to have had an inimitable gift for writing with the English language.

This is an inexact estimate, but it’s directionally useful.
   
I didn’t get a single incorrect answer on the test!
   
A huge mistake that was made by the prosecution would later invalidate the defendant’s conviction.
   
The archbishop said, “Do not let hatred indwell your hearts!”
   
The stalemate between the two warring sides seemed to be insoluble. 
   
Signals from pulsars are close to invariable.
   
I ate way too much spicy food, and I’ve now got a serious case of indigestion.
   
When a price goes up, often the demand for the product goes down; but in some cases, price increases do NOT quell demand, so the product is called “price inelastic” (the same thing happens with price decreases; demand for the product doesn’t go up, either).

    
    
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)   
    

U.S. Western Frontier Expansion up to 1812

Lesson 36 – Part One

    
NEW WORDS: Boone’s, Boones, Boonesborough, Cumberland, Daniel’s, Finley, Ke, Kenta, Rodgers, Yadkin, accede, adventuresome, backwoodsmen, boatman’s, calamities, clamorous, concenter, crisscrossing, demesne, densely, deputies, deterring, discoverer, emigration, encompassing, extirpating, extol, flatboat, graciously, hustling, incongruous, ingenuous, insuppressible, interchange, keelboats, longstanding, meadowland, outlining, passably, pathfinders, pioneering, profuse, proliferant, prototypical, reciprocity, rehash, rifleman, roamings, slew, soundlessly, streamed, summits, thickset, tomahawks, trailblazer, tweaked, unchallenged, unrelaxed, warrior’s, wonderings, woodsman, woodsmen 
   
   

Chapter One: Daniel Boone and the Opening of the West
   
Let’s start with a brief recap of things that you’ve learned up to now. Today, folks from all over the world live in communities. They go from one end of the North American continent to the other. They go from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific in the west. And then there’s each place in between. This map of North America shows the U.S. in green. You can see lots of thin white lines. They’re outlining the states that make up the U.S. But 100s of years back, the map of the U.S. was much smaller than it is now.
   
A long way back, those who lived on the North American continent were Native Americans. They have lived there for 1,000s of years. They lived in both seasonal and longstanding villages. They used great knowledge of the land and its resources to survive.
   
At the same time, let’s head far to the other side of the ocean. Lots of other folks had their own towns. These folks lived in Europe. They were known as Europeans. About 600 years ago, they began to leave their lands. They sailed to new parts of the world. They sought spices, gold, and more wealth. Some of these folks came to North America.
   
Think of how shocked Native Americans and Europeans must have been to see each other. Each “people” looked, dressed, and spoke in a way that was incongruous with the other.
   
What did the first explorers who came to the New World look for? They were trying to find goods and riches. They would take them back to Europe to sell. Lots of these folks learned key skills from the Native Americans, who knew the land so well. They taught the Europeans lots of skills. These were skills like hunting, fishing, gathering, and farming. In reciprocity for their help, the folks from Europe brought things to interchange. Cloth is a good example. So, for years, Europeans went back and forth across the Atlantic.
   
Most Europeans were content to just trade with the Natives. But some wished to start settlements. They wished to live in the New World, as well. The English started their two first settlements in North America in the 1600s. You’ll recall that Plymouth is one of them. That’s in what’s now Massachusetts. And Jamestown is the other one. That’s in what’s now Virginia. At first, the Native Americans helped them to survive. Do you recall how at Plymouth they would extol their harvest as a group? That was the first Thanksgiving in America. The Europeans would not have been able to grow the corn and squash for that meal without help from the Native Americans.

As time passed, more folks from Europe came to the New World. And that’s even though Native Americans had been living on that same land for eons. Fights over the land began to break out. Each group refused to share the land. The settlers claimed most of the land on the east coast of North America. That’s land where the Native Americans had lived for a long time. The British formed colonies. They were ruled by far-away England. They went from Massachusetts all the way south to Georgia.
   
At some point, some of the more adventuresome settlers got into the game of heading west. Yes, there were calamities with this kind of travel. So, why did they go? Some wished for adventure. Some wished to find new, rich land for farming. Some just wished for a fresh start. All of them would have to learn to be very self-reliant.
   
In general, settlers moved west in varied ways. Some hiked on the trails made by explorers like Daniel Boone, who you will meet in a bit. Others rode on horses or in wagons pulled by oxen and mules. And some folks followed the rivers.
   
West of the Appalachians, most rivers flowed to the west. Lots of them flowed into the giant Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, among others. People that traveled on these rivers built flatboats. These were built out of wooden logs. Some flatboats had cabins. People would live in the cabins along with everything they owned. They would have clothes, furniture, and even animals floating with them.
   
A flatboat had no way to control where it went. It went where the river flowed. So, it would float downstream, towards larger rivers. Then it could go out to sea. Slowly, folks stopped using flatboats. In their place, they built keelboats. Keelboats had sails to steer them through the river. They could even go upstream. But that was hard. The wind would have to be in just the right direction. And it had to be strong enough to push against the river. Most of the time, though, to head upstream meant sticking long poles into the river. Then you’d have to row with all of a boatman’s might.

So, now you know that there was to be a huge emigration of folks from the East Coast of the U.S. They wished to check out the land to the west of them. One of these was a young man by the name of Daniel Boone. So, now you’ve had your rehash and a very brief intro about ways that Americans would head west. Let’s now dive deep and start by learning about this most prototypical of American pathfinders, Daniel Boone.
   
Boone was born in 1734. This was near the town of Reading, Pennsylvania. His father and mother owned a farm. He and his siblings all helped their parents plow the fields on the farm. But he was not content to just be in the open fields. He wished to know about life in the woods around their farm. As a boy, he spent as much time as he could building paths through the woods. He made friends with young Native American boys who lived in these wooded places. They were from the Lenape tribe. They taught him how to move soundlessly through the woods. They taught him how to follow animal footprints. They showed him how to trap wild animals. They showed him how to catch fish in the streams. Daniel learned how to use knives and tomahawks at a young age. His father saw how interested that Daniel was in hunting. He taught Daniel how to use a rifle.
   
One day, Daniel was helping his father plow the fields. He asked if he could help out the family in a new way. He had gotten his first rifle when he was twelve years old. “Father,” he said, “you taught me to shoot a rifle. I have practiced until I am the best shot for miles around. Let me hunt for food for all of us.” His father said “yes.” So, soon the Boones were feasting on wild turkey and deer. Daniel had become a skilled rifleman at quite a young age!
   
In 1750, it was just before Daniel turned sixteen. The Boones moved away from Pennsylvania. They went to the Yadkin River Valley of North Carolina. They set up home at the edge of the frontier. Daniel would spend a few months a year in the woods. His only companion was his rifle. He’d hunt for his food and sleep under the stars. He earned money by selling the furs of the animals that he had killed. For some, the fur trade was a passably profitable business.

Other settlers in his new home quickly saw Daniel’s talents. They saw that he was one of the best woodsmen for miles around. He began to check out his new surroundings. His roamings took him deep into the forests. He heard tales of buffalo to the west. He wished to try to hunt other animals than the profuse numbers of deer and bear that lived in the woods near them.
   
When he grew up, he and his wife Rebecca lived in the forest in North Carolina. They had ten children. They lived together in a big, one-room log house. As an adult, he kept thinking about moving farther west. The wilderness had a hold on Daniel’s imagination. It just would not let go of his thoughts. Like others, he had heard about gorgeous land in the west part of the U.S. And at that time, some million people lived up and down the East Coast. But he and others could not go as far west as they wished to go. They wished to explore western lands. They wished to find new places to farm and build towns. But there was one big thing deterring Daniel and others from heading farther west. Can you guess what it was?
   
There were huge mountains that stood in his way! These are the Appalachian Mountains. They stretch for miles. They go from the present-day state of Maine all the way to Georgia. They were heavily wooded. That made them hard to cross. They formed a natural border. They blocked movement from one side of the mountains to the other. For this reason, few settlers had left their colonies along the east coast to head west. But Daniel knew that Native Americans had been crisscrossing these mountains for years. He would roam through the densely wooded hillsides. His wonderings about lands to the west grew stronger. He would ask each person who he met if they knew of a way to cross the mountains.

Chapter Two: Crossing the Appalachian Mountains
   
Boone kept his thoughts on the Appalachians. He looked for a path that might lead him to the other side. It was said that there was an old Native American trail called the “Warrior’s Path.” But he could not find it, try as he did. One day he saw an old friend. That was John Finley. Daniel told John of his wish to find a way to cross the mountains. His friend gave him a big surprise. He said, “Why, I know a way! I’ve crossed those mountains myself.” He said that he knew of a few big gaps in the mountains.
   
These gaps were called “passes.” They’d been formed by rushing water years ago. They had then been trampled down first by buffalo. Later, Native Americans made the trails even better to use. One pass was not too far from where Boone lived. “It’s in Virginia. It’s called the Cumberland Gap,” Finley told him. “We have to look for an old Native American footpath to find it.” Boone was thrilled! He asked Finley to show him how to find it.
   
Where these trails were was in a region that was called “Kenta–Ke.” That means “meadowland.” That name would be tweaked later to become “Kentucky.” It would be one of the first U.S. states that was not one of the original 13 colonies.
   
Things got going not long after Boone’s meetings with Finley. The two men set off with four other men. They were on a big trek to find the Cumberland Gap. They walked and rode on horseback for lots of miles. They reached the beaten path that led up a steep side of the mountain. They spent long days climbing up and up. Boone’s skills as a woodsman helped him. He could recognize animal tracks. He could follow the native footpath. They were thrilled to reach the top of the mountains. There, they could see a huge river that stretched out beneath them. They kept moving on a narrow footpath. The men made it to the other side of the mountains. That’s the land that is now known as Kentucky.
   
Boone and his friends were quite pleased with what they found. The land was rich and proliferant. And there were great herds of buffalo that grazed on grasses. For the next two years, Boone stayed in east Kentucky. He spent his time hunting and trapping wild animals.

He then went back to North Carolina. He was met by other settlers. They showed an interest in leaving their homes in the east. They talked of moving to the west. These folks asked Boone if he could show them the way across the mountains. “It’s a hard trip,” Boone told them. “The woods are thickset. And there are lots of dangers on the trail.” But even Daniel wondered how he could bring Rebecca, his children, and all that he owned to this new land.
   
Two more years passed. But the pioneering spirit of these folks was insuppressible. They convinced Daniel that they were serious. They wished to make the hard trip to these wilderness lands. And so, Daniel led his family and others back through the Cumberland Gap. They headed to Kentucky. But the trip proved harder for families than it had been for the backwoodsmen. These folks were not used to living in the wild outdoors like the woodsmen. To set up a home in Kentucky was tougher than these folks had thought it would be. They were forced to go back home over the mountains.
   
Soon after, a rich man bought land in east Kentucky. He bought it from the Cherokee tribes. This rich man wished to sell the land to families. That way, they could live on the other side of the mountains. First, there had to be a well-marked trail. That way, they would not lose their way as they crossed the mountain summits. The rich man had heard of the skilled discoverer and trailblazer named Daniel Boone. He asked him to “blaze,” or create, a trail that the settlers could follow. It would need to be more like a wide, flat road.
   
Boone pulled together a group of men. They helped him clear the forest through the wilderness. They worked through rain, snow, and mud. Their axes chopped down trees and bushes. They widened the old native footpath. That way, the pioneers’ wagons would fit. They built log bridges across streams. Boone and the men cleared the trail! It went from eastern Virginia, through the Cumberland Gap, and into Kentucky. It ended at the Kentucky River. Their trail was known as the “Wilderness Road.” Settlers from Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania took note of this. They would now move along this new route in great numbers. Kentucky was soon made a state. That was less than 20 years after the trail was blazed. At this time, more than 100,000 people had used the Wilderness Road! Boone’s hard work was responsible for opening up this region. It was known, simply, as “the West” to lots of folks. More and more of them streamed into the west. And relations with the Native Americans who lived there were now even more unrelaxed.

Boone’s own family was the first to put down roots in Kentucky. Boone chose a spot near the Kentucky River. There, he would build a fort. It took a few years to complete the fort. It was about as large as one city block. The fort sheltered log cabins and the people who lived in them. The fort was named Boonesborough. That was, of course, named for Daniel Boone, the man who built it.
   
Life was tough for the settlers at the start. But folks kept streaming across the mountains. At first, the Wilderness Road was the sole road through the mountains to Kentucky. Thousands of people followed it across the mountains to Boonesborough. As time passed, the road went further west to Louisville, Kentucky. That city was founded by George Rodgers Clark in 1778. Thousands of folks would also float flatboats on the Ohio River to get to Louisville. In fact, so many folks had now come west that Boone felt that these throngs were extirpating his precious wilderness. It was now not a wilderness land. By 1792, Kentucky had enough people to become a state. And Tennessee became a state just four years later.
   
Daniel Boone never gave up his love for the wilderness. And he continued to explore lands to the west of Kentucky until his death at the age of eighty-six. He died on September 26, 1820. What an incredible and influential life he had lived!

Chapter Three: Jefferson and Monroe
   
Pretend that you live with your pa, your ma, and two sisters. You’re in a wood cabin that looks like a small box. In the cabin are all of the things that your family owns. Each morning, you look out. You see that deep, rolling water is encompassing you. Your home is a house on a boat. It’s called a “flatboat.” You’re floating down the Mississippi River.
   
You stand on top of the cabin. You steer the boat with long oars. You drift down the mighty river. This is just one of very few ways to reach the West, beyond the boundaries of the young U.S. But you’re heading south. You’re going to the hustling city of New Orleans. You plan for it to be your new home. At night, under the light of a lantern that glows, you write down your thoughts and dreams.
   
You get closer to New Orleans. You see a slew of boats. They hold barrels of apples, salt, bags of flour, tobacco, and wood. These are key things that Americans trade with each other and with other countries. Boats constantly stop at the clamorous port of New Orleans. They are hard at work loading and unloading cargo. This port is where traders send goods to other states and across the Atlantic to Europe. But there is a “catch” here. In fact, it’s a huge problem. You see, New Orleans is not a U.S. city! It is under the demesne of France.
   
The U.S. owns most of the land from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. But what happens if you cross the Mississippi? You’re standing on land that’s owned by France. And they own all of that land stretching west to the Rocky Mountains. This land is called “the Louisiana Territory.” And it’s about as big as the then-existing U.S. boundaries at that time!
   
So, we’ll now turn to a story about Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. Jefferson is concerned about “constraints” that might occur with U.S. citizens being able to travel the Mississippi unchallenged by the French. He’s worried that French control of New Orleans could – in worse times – put a huge damper on the U.S. ability to trade in this region of the U.S. Let’s see how Jefferson fixed this huge potential problem!

He entered his office in Washington, D.C. Jefferson, president of the U.S., was pleased to find his friend, James Monroe, waiting for him. Monroe graciously rose to his feet. Jefferson said, “Sit down, James. This is not a formal meeting. You can clearly see that.” He smiled. In fact, he was dressed in his robe and slippers!
   
The two men sat down. Monroe thought, “Jefferson does not try to make himself look fancy or important. But he is the smartest, most intriguing man who I’ve ever known. How lucky I am to be his friend!”
   
At the same time, Jefferson was thinking kind things about Monroe. “He is ingenuous and quite smart. And he will work hard to do a good job.”
   
Now, the president spoke. He said, “James, I have a key job that I want you to do. It’s a job that I think you are well-suited for. I want you to buy a city for us.”
   
“I beg your pardon!” Monroe yelled in shock. “Buy a city?”
   
“Yes, I want to send you to France. I’d like for you to see the Emperor Napoleon. You know that he rules France. And he controls half of Europe, as well. He wants to be the greatest leader in the world. And he wants France to be the greatest country. I want you to buy the city of New Orleans from him. If he sells some of his North American assets, he can concenter better on his fight with England. And he could gain better relations with the U.S. at the same time.”
   
Monroe knew that New Orleans sat near the mouth of the Mississippi River. French settlers started to live in New Orleans many years ago. That’s because they knew that ships and boats could sail up and down the Mississippi. This let folks buy and sell with each other all along the length of that great river. Monroe knew that France still owned New Orleans. It also owned a great deal of land west of the Mississippi. This land stretched all the way to the Rockies.
   
Jefferson stopped. He stared into the flames of the fire by which they sat. It was a cold morning. Then he went on. “As you know, James, our nation, the U.S., is on the east side of the Mississippi. The region that France has claimed is on the west side. More of our citizens are moving near the Mississippi. They’re building towns and cities along the river. We must make sure that we can do business up and down that river. That’s if we’re going to build up that part of the U.S. Right now, France and the U.S. are friends. And Napoleon lets U.S. ships pass by New Orleans on their way from the ocean up and down the river. But if he ever got mad at us, that would be really bad.”

“Yes,” said Monroe. “He could stop our ships and boats. Then they could not bring us the things that we need. He could stop our farmers in that part of the country from sending food that they grow to the rest of us back east. Or he could stop folks in the east from shipping farm tools to the farmers. I see why New Orleans is key. But why would he want to sell it to us?”
   
Jefferson said, “Napoleon needs as much cash as he can get his hands on. That way, he can pay for supplies, uniforms, food, and ships for his troops and sailors. That’s because France is fighting in a big war in Europe. We will offer to pay him the cash that he wants. That will make him happy. Then we’ll get control of the river. And that will make us happy!”
   
“Hmm. Napoleon seems to have a reason to sell New Orleans to us, then,” said Monroe.
   
Jefferson said, “He may have a reason. But we must get him to accede to the sale. He can be quite tough to work with, James. He thinks that he is the most important man alive. So, what if he believes that you think so, too? Then, he can be a loyal, powerful friend. On the other hand, what if he thinks that you do not see him as important, or do not agree with his ideas? Then he’ll have his deputies throw you out of his palace and slam the door. James, you are so likable. He’ll want to work with you. Think about what we get if you succeed. You’ll help us to open up the whole western part of our country that’s near the Mississippi River. Will you try?”
   
Monroe stood up. “It will be my honor to do so,” he said. Jefferson got up. The two friends shook hands. As he turned to go, Monroe thought for a bit. “When I came here this morning, I had no idea that I’d be going to France for the president of the U.S! And just think about it. Now I get to go there to buy a city!”

    
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)   
    

U.S. Western Frontier Expansion up to 1812

Lesson 37 – Part Two

    
NEW WORDS: Clark’s, Colter, Colter’s, Drouillard, Lewis’s, Meriwether, Monroe’s, Napoleon’s, Whitehouse, Yankton, Yanktons, accouterments, borderland, cathedra, escritoire, facilitating, fishhooks, havens, illimitable, impotence, imprimatur, keelboat, keelboat’s, mightier, negotiator, oarsmen, ostentatious, pirogue, pirogue’s, pirogues, plucky, pronghorn, pronghorns, remedies, rescues, trappers, tribesmen, unflinchingly, uninvestigated, wallpapers    
   
   

Chapter Four: The Louisiana Purchase
   
James Monroe sat at an escritoire. He was in his hotel room in France. He had been sent to France by the leader of the U.S. That was Thomas Jefferson.
   
You’ll recall that France owned the city of New Orleans. That was near where the Mississippi River flowed into the sea. Whoever controlled New Orleans made the call on which ships passed up and down the river. The land on the east side of the river was owned by the U.S. The land on the west side was owned by France. Jefferson had told Monroe what he’d like to see happen. “I want you to go to France. Offer to buy the city of New Orleans from Napoleon. He needs cash to buy supplies for his troops and sailors. They are at war on a number of fronts. If he will sell New Orleans to us, he will get the cash that he needs. And we will gain control of the Mississippi.”
   
Monroe met with Napoleon. This took place in the French emperor’s palace. This was in Paris, France. This was not like the house in which President Jefferson lived in Washington, D.C.
   
Monroe looked back on his meetings with both Jefferson and the French Emperor, Napoleon. He thought, “Jefferson’s home is not like Napoleon’s. Napoleon lives in an ostentatious palace. There are fine wooden floors. They’re half-covered in thick carpets. The walls are bright. They’re adorned with expensive wallpapers. And the furniture likely cost a lot of money. Napoleon is dressed in fancy clothes and accouterments. When he sits on that cathedra of his, he talks. Then each person in the room listens! That’s because they are scared of his power. And they hope that he will do favors for them.”
   
“But there are no thrones for Jefferson. And there are no royal garments to make him look special. Sometimes folks who come to the presidential mansion don’t even recognize Jefferson. They think that he is one of the servants. That’s until they meet him. When he starts to speak, though, each person listens. But that’s not because they’re scared of him. They listen because he is a brilliant man with great ideas. He does not need thrones or royal robes in order for folks to see that he is a great man.”

“Well,” Monroe thought, “I guess that I should be fair. Napoleon may not be my sort of man. But he is quite smart once you are talking in depth with him. And he might do a great favor for the U.S.”
   
Monroe recalled his last time with Napoleon. He had told Monroe, “I have thought over your president’s offer to buy New Orleans. I fear that the sale of New Orleans to the U.S. will not bring me as much cash as I need. So, I will sell you New Orleans and more. I will also sell to you all of the lands owned by France between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. That’s called the Louisiana Territory. We will sell this land to you at a fair price.” When he heard this, Monroe knew something with a shock. “That’s as much land as there is in all of the U.S! In one fell swoop, we would have a nation twice as big as it is right now!”
   
Monroe had stayed calm when he answered the Emperor. “Your Majesty. This is a huge opportunity for us. I can’t accept your offer until I show it to President Jefferson and hear his answer. I will write to him at once.”
   
In Monroe’s time, there was no phone or email. So, Monroe had to write a letter to Jefferson. The letter would have to sail over the ocean. It would be sent in the same kind of ship that Monroe had sailed on when he first came to France. It would take a few weeks for Jefferson to get Monroe’s letter. It would take even longer for Monroe to get Jefferson’s answer.
   
Now, Monroe sat in his hotel room. He thought about this offer. He picked up his pen. “I need to finish my letter,” he thought. “And then I can send it to him by the first ship that sails to the U.S. When he reads it, he will be quite surprised.”
   
And it was just as Monroe had thought. Jefferson got Monroe’s letter on the night before the 4th of July. And, yes, he was amazed when he read that letter. He thought, “This is even better than I could have dreamed! We won’t be buying just the city of New Orleans. We’ll get the full Louisiana Territory! The U.S. will double in size! I will write back to Monroe at once. I will tell him to buy the Louisiana Territory for the U.S.” He smiled. “The timing could not be better.” Then he picked up his pen. He began the letter telling Monroe to seal the deal with France. This was a bargain that would double the size of the U.S.

When the transaction had been completed in 1803, the U.S. had paid France $15 million for the full Louisiana Territory. That might sound like a lot of cash. But it was quite a good deal. When you looked at the full size of the land involved, it boiled down to a cost of just eighteen dollars for each square mile of land! What’s your opinion of this seminal moment in U.S. history? Was Jefferson a great negotiator? Or did he pretty much just get very lucky?

Chapter Five: Lewis and Clark
   
We learned last time about the Louisiana Purchase. That’s when the U.S. bought the Louisiana Territory from France. After the sale, Jefferson wished to send explorers to the region. He wanted maps made of this new land. He wished to learn more about it.
   
He asked, “Could there be tigers or elephants living out there in those uninvestigated western lands? No one has been there enough to really know. Are there plants whose leaves could be used as remedies to help sick people? Or are there new foods which would be good to eat? My Native American friends who live there have brought me a few plants to look at. But I’m sure that there must be more plants and animals which even they have not seen.”
   
Jefferson prepared to send scouts to these new lands. “I need their leader to be someone who I can trust. It must be someone who is both brave and smart.” Then he smiled. “Why, I know just the man for the job!” He sat down and wrote a letter to his former assistant. He was a man named Meriwether Lewis. He was 29 years old. Lewis had been an army leader who knew how to survive in the great outdoors. Jefferson asked Lewis if he would lead the team.
   
Jefferson had three reasons for wanting Lewis to check out the Louisiana Territory. He wrote a letter to Lewis. “First, I want you to find out if there is an all-water route to the Pacific Ocean. Travel the Missouri River. It branches out to the west from the Mississippi River. The two big rivers meet at St. Louis. So, you could start the trip along the Missouri from there. Perhaps the Missouri River flows all the way to the Pacific. Or, if it does not, maybe it connects to other rivers that do reach the Pacific. You can find out for us. Second, you can pick up samples of plants and animals. That way, we will know what grows well in the lands that we’ve just added to our nation. Third, you must be friends with the Native Americans who you meet, too. You’ll want to bring with you gifts for them. That way, they’ll know that you come in peace.”

Lewis got the letter. He was thrilled! But he was a thoughtful man. He wrote back, “I am quite honored that you have asked me to do this, Mr. President. I will do my very best for you and for our nation. With your imprimatur, though, I will ask a friend of mine, William Clark, to help me with these tasks. Clark and I were great friends when we served with each other in the army. He and I work well as a team. Clark has been a skilled soldier. He has explored many borderland regions. And he is a talented artist. Along with that skill, Clark is also quite good at drawing maps. And he is good at identifying plants and animals. Further, he has a lot of experience with Native Americans. To have him with me would make me feel much more certain that we could do the things that you ask. That’s if Clark could come with me as co-captain.” President Jefferson said, “yes.”
    
Lewis and Clark prepped to start on their trip. They did not know what dangers and wonders they were about to face with each other. And they did not know that this would make their friendship even stronger.

Chapter Six: Lewis and Clark: The Journey Begins
   
Lewis and Clark prepped for the trip. Lewis went to Indiana. There, he joined Clark. They gathered their team. Lewis said, “As I wrote in my letters, Will, the U.S. government is paying for this journey. Thus, we will head out as members of the U.S. Army. I asked that you and I be made co-captains. That’s so that we would have equal command over our men.”
   
Soon they went to St. Louis. That’s where the wide Missouri River flows into the even mightier Mississippi. St. Louis was a frontier town. Its streets and stores bustled with hunters and trappers. These folks had made a choice to live far beyond the more settled cities of the east.
   
The two captains knew that it would take courage, smarts, and skill to reach the Pacific. So, they looked for folks who knew how to survive in forests and on rivers and mountains. These folks would need to know how to hunt and fish for food. They’d have to build havens in which they could stay warm, dry, and safe. Some were folks who had grown up in Virginia or Pennsylvania. But they had moved farther west to live in Kentucky. Others were Canadians who spoke French as well as English. The two captains put together a team of some 40 trusty men. They were all plucky. They were more than qualified for the venture.
   
One man who joined Lewis and Clark’s group stood out. He came before them one day. He was dressed half in manufactured clothing, and half in the animal skins favored by woodsmen. “I am George Drouillard,” he told them. “I hear that you plan to go all the way to the Pacific. Ask those who you’ve hired about me. They all know me. I speak French, English, and some Native American. So, I can help you talk with your men, and with lots of native people who you meet. And I know the hand sign languages used by Native Americans who live out on the great western plains. When different tribes meet, they use this sign language. That’s because their spoken languages are not all the same. I can ask them about the country in front of us. I can help them to know that you have come in peace.”

Lewis and Clark had to get supplies as well as people. They would need to take a lot of things with them on their trip. First, they bought some long, thin canoes. These were called “pirogues.” One of them held tents, tools, clothing, guns, ammunition, food, and medical supplies. And they bought one large, wider boat. This was called a “keelboat.” On the deck of the keelboat stood a little cabin. That held lots of supplies, as well. They had thought about their meetings with Native Americans, as well. So, things such as hatchets, mirrors, colored beads, and silk ribbons were brought with them to use to trade. They even had 2,800 fishhooks and 4,600 needles!
   
The procession worked like this. Their horses would walk ahead on the banks of the river. Then, riders in the pirogues moved their thin boats forward using canoe paddles. But the keelboat had a sail. Moving the keelboat was slower and harder than moving a pirogue. When a strong enough wind was behind them, it pushed the keelboat along. But what if there was no wind? Then the men had to take turns pushing and pulling it with poles and ropes. As a minor point of interest, Lewis’s dog also came with the group! His name was “Seaman.” And he was a Black Newfoundland. Lewis chose this breed of dog because they do well on boats, they are good swimmers, and they are helpful with facilitating in water rescues.
   
On Monday, May 14, 1804, the team was ready. They called themselves the “Corps of Discovery.” Now they would leave St. Louis. They would head west along the Missouri. This was just as Jefferson had asked them to do. One of them, Private John Whitehouse, wrote this in his diary that day. “We hoisted our sail. Then we set out in high spirits for the western expedition.” At last, they were on their way.

Chapter Seven: Discovery and Danger on the Prairie
   
As they headed west, the men met all kinds of weather conditions. The summer sun blazed down on them. Heavy rains soaked them. Mosquitoes bit them. And when winter came, the men would have to stop, since the rivers would freeze over.
   
One key day in their trek was July 19, 1804. Clark was at the edge of an ocean. It was not the Pacific Ocean, the vast sea to the west that Clark and his friends hoped to reach. In fact, it was not an ocean of water at all. It was a large, flat region of land. It was covered in grass. It was called a prairie. A prairie goes on as far as the eye can see, just like the ocean.
   
Clark was out on a hunt for the team. He spotted some elk tracks. He followed them up a hill. He later wrote of what he found at the top. “I came, all of a sudden, to an open and illimitable prairie. I could not see the edges in any direction. This was so sudden and entertaining that I forgot about the elk that I had been tracking.” Clark had reached the eastern edge of what we now call “The Great Plains.” Wild grass as high as Clark’s knees stretched out. It blew gently in the wind. It was interrupted every so often by a hill or a grove of trees. That sea of grass stretched all the way to the distant Rocky Mountains. And it would take the Corps of Discovery weeks more to reach them!
   
In those weeks, the explorers saw lots of plants and animals that were new to them. Lewis was intrigued by the pronghorn antelope. They were called “pronghorns,” for short. He tried to get close to them to draw pictures of them. But they always ran from him. Pronghorns have both very sharp eyesight and a strong sense of smell. This helps to warn them of nearby danger. At one point, Lewis came close to one of them. He got a good look at the long, curved horns that give the animal its name. He wrote, “The speed of this animal is equal, if not superior, to that of the finest racing horse. The pronghorn is my favorite of all the animals that we have seen so far.”

The team was also amazed by the prairie dog. This creature is a tiny rodent. They’re related to squirrels. They lived together by the thousands. The men came to call their living places “prairie dog towns.” The prairie dog towns were built of underground tunnels. They could stretch out for miles across the flat plains. “We have to catch one of these to send back to President Jefferson,” Clark said. But to catch a prairie dog was hard to do. One prairie dog would stand guard above its hole in the ground. It would see the men coming. Then, it would chirp a high-pitched warning (which influenced Lewis to call them “barking squirrels”). All at once, all of the creatures dove down into the ground. The men dug down after them. But they found that the tunnels went down more than six feet below the surface. They spread out in all directions. And they had emergency exits with which to escape their many predators. Some of these were hawks, coyotes, and snakes. All of them thought that prairie dogs were tasty snacks. Clark wrote down their findings about the prairie dog and pronghorn antelope in his journal. And he mentioned one other new animal, as well. That was the white pelican.
   
The team stayed along the Missouri River across the prairie. They moved on. Soon they would meet new tribes of Native Americans. Most were friendly and welcoming. In particular, there was one nice tribe called the Yankton Sioux. A few of the Yanktons would guide the travelers for a few days. But then, they said, “You have come to the land of the Teton Sioux. We can’t guide you any longer.”
   
Lewis and Clark had heard about the Teton Sioux. Jefferson wished for them to become friends with them. But the Teton Sioux were not interested in trade with the settlers. And they did not want to allow Lewis and Clark on their land.

Let’s turn to one September afternoon. John Colter was one of the team’s best hunters. He was following the tracks of an animal. He dismounted from his horse to look more closely. Some Teton Sioux hid among the nearby trees on their own horses. They let out a shout and rushed forward. They rode off with Colter’s horse. Colter walked back to the river. He told Lewis and Clark what had happened. Minutes later, five Teton Sioux showed up on the shore. They called out to talk to Lewis and Clark. Captain Clark said, “We will not speak with you until our horse is brought back to us.”
   
Minutes passed, and more than 200 Teton warriors rode out from the trees. They spread out on the riverbank. They were all armed with bows and arrows.
   
Lewis recalled that Jefferson wished for them to be friends with the Teton Sioux. He quietly ordered, “Stop the boats. Hold them steady here in the middle of the river.” Clark smiled. He called, “We come as friends from our great chief.” The chief that Clark talked of was President Jefferson. “We ask for your chiefs to come and see our great boat.”
   
Clark called for a few sailors to row him to shore in a pirogue. After greeting the three main chiefs, Clark brought two of them aboard the keelboat. There, he and Lewis were friendly to the Teton Sioux. They gave them gifts. Then Clark and the oarsmen took the chiefs back to the shore.
   
Meanwhile, Lewis stood ready on the keelboat’s bow. And his soldiers kept rifles in their hands, or right by their sides, in case of trouble. Things seemed to be going well. But then one chief let out a shout. “Your gifts are not good enough. You may not go back to your big boat until you give us better gifts.” Sioux tribesmen grabbed the pirogue’s rope. They held onto it unflinchingly.
   
Clark knew that the Teton Sioux honored courage. He could not show any sign of impotence at this point. If he did, the Tetons might start a fight. Even if there were no fight, any chance of a strong friendship with the Tetons could disappear. Clark whipped his sword out. He held it high. He demanded, “Let go of our boat at once!”

Back on the keelboat, Lewis said to his men, “Prepare arms! Only on my order may you fire. And don’t do it a second before.” At once, the soldiers raised their rifles. In answer, the Tetons raised their bows and set their arrows. They were ready to shoot at the Corps.
   
No one moved. The silence stretched out for a long, tense moment. Then a Sioux chief told those who held the rope, “Let go.” They did as he said. Clark told his oarsmen, “Get back to the keelboat.”
   
One of his men asked, “Without you, sir?”
   
“I gave you an order,” Clark said in a voice that sounded much calmer than he felt.
   
The pirogue pushed off from the riverbank. Then, Teton tribesmen got all around Clark. Lewis could see only his friend’s hat over the shoulders of the Sioux. Lewis gave orders. The pirogue reached the keelboat. Some of the armed soldiers got into it. They started back for Clark. But then, quickly, the Tetons moved away from Clark.
   
Clark’s courage had impressed the Tetons. They thought that Clark was brave. That’s because he had stood up to them. They smiled in friendship. They asked the members of the expedition to come to their village. The explorers said “yes” to the invitation. The Corps of Discovery had survived a tricky situation. What they did not know was that even greater dangers, and even greater victories, still lay ahead.

    
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)   
    

U.S. Western Frontier Expansion up to 1812

Lesson 38 – Part Three

    
NEW WORDS: Baptiste, Charbonneau, Clearwater, Floyd, Hidatsa, Hidatsas, Mandan, Mandans, Marias, Nez, Perce, Sacagawea, Sacagawea’s, Shannon, Shoshone, Shoshones, Toussaint, Zebulon, accretion, bivouac, canoeist, cedars, contentment, counterpoised, easterners, exultantly, grizzlies, hibernated, journals, observances, quieter, redoubtable, transfixed, visitants    
   
  

Chapter Eight: Sacagawea
    
Fall was near. Lewis and Clark were in a hurry. They knew that the Rockies lay in front of them. And they hoped to spend the winter there with the Mandan and the Hidatsa tribes. But it was now quite cold. The river was turning to ice. And when it froze, they could not head up the river in their boats.
   
They were near where the Knife River flows into the Missouri. They found five villages of Hidatsa and Mandan natives. They were like other natives who lived on the plains. These tribes would hunt bison from horseback. They lived in permanent Earth lodges. They farmed the land near their homes. Four or five families shared each lodge. Even the horses spent bad weather days inside. They were placed in a roped-off space just inside the entrance.
   
The Mandans welcomed the travelers from the east. That’s because they were used to visitants. Other Native American tribes and trappers came to the Mandan area to share news. And they came to buy and sell furs that were acquired from beavers, bear, elk, or bison.
   
The easterners set up across the river. They were across from one of the Mandan villages. They built a wood house. They circled it with log walls that were 18 feet high for protection. The men of the Corps named their winter home. They called it “Fort Mandan.” They named it after the Mandans.
   
They dragged the pirogues onto the riverbank. But before they could move the keelboat, the river froze around it. It took three weeks to chop the keelboat out of the ice! They had other worries, too. Lewis told Clark, “We’re eating too much food. We will run out before the winter is over. And in this bad weather, it will be harder to hunt.”
   
But they had a bit of luck. The Mandans came one day with good news. They said, “We have found a herd of bison near here. Come to hunt with us. We have brought horses for you to ride.” The result was more food. And they had more warm blankets made from their hides. The winter nights grew long. Temps plunged to 30, even 40, degrees below zero. The explorers would trade with the Mandans for food. In return for the food that the Mandans gave them, Lewis and Clark would act as doctors. They would tend to those in the tribes who were sick or injured. And a few of the explorers were skilled as blacksmiths. They made iron tools, axes, and arrowheads for the Mandans.
   
The team spent lots of cold nights asking the Hidatsas and Mandans about the land that lay in front of them. Lewis and Clark kept all of the info that they had learned in a journal.

Then one day, a French-Canadian trader showed up at the gates of Fort Mandan. He said, “I am Toussaint Charbonneau. I heard of you from the Hidatsas. I am a good cook. And I speak English, French, and a number of Native American languages. I could cook for you. And I could translate what is said in other languages into English.” The Frenchman had not come alone. With him was his pregnant wife. She was a young Native American woman. Her name was Sacagawea. She was from the Shoshone tribe. That tribe lived farther along the Missouri River. They were the next tribe that Lewis and Clark thought that they would meet. Lewis and Clark discussed the man’s offer. “Sacagawea could be a big help when we reach the lands of the Shoshone. She could show them that we come as friends. And she knows a lot about the country there. As for the Frenchman, what if he is the cook who he claims to be? Then he will be a great accretion to our team.” Lewis told the Frenchman, “We want you and your wife to join us. And, of course, we will pay you for your work.”
   
This turned out to be one of the best calls that the co-captains had made. And while they had agreed to hire two new members of the team, they soon had three. One cold night, Sacagawea gave birth to a boy. The new father looked with pride at his newborn son. He said, “We shall call you Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.”
   
Clark laughed. “That’s a big name for such a wee fellow to carry. I’ll call him ‘Pompey.'” Pompey proved to be a good traveler, too. And many of the team nicknamed him “Little Pomp.”
   
Now that you’ve met Sacagawea, let’s learn more about her. When she was ten years old, she was captured. She was taken far from her home by the Hidatsa, a Native American people. When she was older, Sacagawea married Charbonneau, a French Canadian. Together, they would hunt animals and trade furs. When they met Lewis and Clark, they joined the Corps.

One day, both Lewis and Clark walked along the edge of the river. A sudden wind struck one of the canoes. That one held all of their papers, books, tools, medicines, and other things that they owned. Charbonneau was in the canoe. But he did not know how to swim. By mistake, he turned the canoe on its side. This dumped all of the contents into the river. Sacagawea bravely jumped into the river. She saved all of the things that had washed over the sides.
   
Lewis and Clark wrote that Sacagawea was brave and strong. At some point, the Corps began to walk across the Rocky Mountains. Sacagawea knew that she was back home in the land of her people, the Shoshone. She saw that tree bark had been removed to make food and medicine. This was a sign that they were near the Shoshone. This story will continue in a bit.
   
As they moved on, Lewis and Clark got their notes and drawings in order. And they labeled samples of plants and animals that they had gathered. When spring came, Clark said, “We will now split the team into two groups. We will send some of you back east. You will take President Jefferson the things that we have collected and written so far. The rest of us will keep going west.” You’ll recall that there were no phones and no email yet. And there was no way to send mail in the Louisiana Territory, either. Lewis and Clark sent some of the Corps to tell Jefferson of their progress, and what they had found so far.
   
On April 7, 1805, some of the team returned back east as planned. They had with them four boxes. And they had a trunk filled with plant and rock samples. They had the captains’ journals and drawings, too. And they took with them some living animals. They had a magpie and a prairie dog, for instance. Lewis told Clark, “I wish that I could see Jefferson’s face when that magpie starts to chatter. He will be so pleased. And he will be thrilled with all of the information in our journals and drawings.”

Clark said, “He will be even happier when you and I report to him in person that we have reached the Pacific.” Then the two men started westward once more. With them were the remaining men, one woman (Sacagawea), and a baby.

Chapter Nine: Red Cedars and Grizzly Bears
   
You’ll recall that Lewis and Clark sent some of the team back east. They took with them reports and scientific samples for Jefferson. The captains and the rest of their crew went on west. They rode in two of their original pirogues. Plus, they had six new canoes. They had made them from hollowed-out trees. These canoes were some 30 feet long and 3 feet wide. And they were hard to keep counterpoised. More than once, as the men got used to them, the canoes overturned in mid-river. That forced the men to fish out wet supplies before they could go on. Despite this, Lewis wrote that the men were happy and healthy.
   
Soon they left behind the flat plains. They were now in land with lots of hills. At this point, the Missouri River was harder to travel. Forests of western red cedars lined the banks of the river. These gorgeous trees were quite important to the natives of the region. Some of them called themselves “the people of the red cedar.” They would have special observances before they would chop down the huge evergreens.
   
Lewis and Clark knew that they could not take a whole tree back with them. That’s due to their great size. They grew to some 200 feet above the ground. That’s as tall as a twenty-story building! But the tree was so crucial to the lives of the Native Americans. So, they knew that they must bring samples and record its many uses. They drew pictures of them. They collected their branches, cones, and seeds.
   
They learned more about the red cedar. As they did, they wrote more and more about it. The people and animals of the northwest relied on the tree for their existence. The natives used the bark of the tree, for instance. They would weave mats, baskets, and clothing. And they used the wood to build canoes. Elk ate the leaves and shoots of the huge tree. Bears hibernated in hollow cedar logs.

The men heard often of a new type of bear. They were called “grizzly bears.” They made their homes in the hollowed-out logs of the cedars. So, as they made their way up the Missouri, Clark warned, “Keep a sharp eye out for these bears.” 
   
One of the hunters said, “Don’t fret, Captain. We’ve seen lots of bears before. That was back in Kentucky.”
   
Clark said, “Black bears, yes. Grizzlies, no. From what I hear, it’s like the difference between a house cat and a lion.”
   
One day, Lewis and a comrade were out on a hunt on the riverbank. All at once, they saw two huge grizzlies up ahead. The bears rose up on their hind legs. They stood eight feet tall! Then, with loud roars, the bears charged. The men raised their rifles. They took careful aim. Lewis and his friend shot one bear. But the other one kept coming right at them. It ran with redoubtable speed. “Run!” shouted Lewis. And the two men turned and ran for their lives! Lewis and the other man stopped running once. They wished to try to take one more shot. They turned, took aim, and fired at the same time. The loud “bang” was followed by a tense moment. The bear stopped. It held still for a bit. And then it toppled over.
   
The men made sure that the grizzly bear was dead. Then, Lewis and his teammate carefully went up to the animal. Lewis later wrote about this in his journal. He said that the bear weighed between 500 and 600 pounds. And it was eight and a half feet tall. That’s taller than two first graders, one standing on top of the other!
   
After this tense chase, Lewis warned his men. “From now on, we must always move about, and do even the simplest actions, in parties of two or more. One man alone up against a grizzly would not stand a chance.”

Chapter Ten: Rivers and Mountains
   
The Corps had now been on their trip for more than a year. The teammates were now good friends with each other. And they had learned to depend on each other. One day, John Shields and George Shannon went ahead of the others in a pirogue. Shields was the blacksmith. He knew his way around outdoors. Shannon was smart and friendly.
   
The two of them paddled up the river. They talked of the enthralling events that they had gone through so far. “Well,” Private Shannon said, “no one can say that this has been dull.”
   
No sooner were those words out of his mouth than the tip of their pirogue came around a bend in the river. They saw a sight that caused them to stop paddling. Up ahead, the Missouri split into two wide rivers. One headed northwest. One headed southwest. One of the two rivers was the Missouri. And the other was not. “Which one is the Missouri?” Shannon asked. “That river is the one that the captains think can take us farther west.”
   
“I don’t know,” Shields said. “And I don’t think that the captains will know either. We’ve passed the part of the river that our native friends told us about. And none of us has seen this part of the country before.”
   
Soon the other boats got there. The men went ashore. Lewis and Clark walked ahead. They checked out the two rivers. Clark said, “If we take the wrong one, it may turn too cold for us to travel if we have to come back here and try the other.”
   
The natives told them that the Missouri River ended in the Rockies. Lewis and Clark knew that they would have to go by land instead of by water to cross the mountains. They now knew that they could not cross the mountains on a river. So, that meant that there was no all-water route to the Pacific.
   
Clark said, “We need to find the Shoshone up ahead. That way, we can buy horses from them.” They all agreed. But first they would have to stay along the Missouri to the Rockies.

Lewis said, “Recall what the last Native Americans who we talked to said. There is a huge waterfall up ahead on the Missouri River. We need to find it. Take some men down the south fork, Clark. And I’ll try the north. If one of us finds it, that person will know that he’s on the right river. We’ll meet back here in a few days. We’ll find which group has found the falls.”
   
They were not lucky this time. When they met back up in a few days, neither group had found the falls. Lewis had another thought. He said that they should try to look for the falls by land. They would stop following the rivers.
   
Lewis and his men walked for two days. This time they went along the south fork. Then they heard “the agreeable sound of falling water.” They followed the sound. They came to not just one waterfall. They found a whole series of great waterfalls. This was it! They could now be confident that the southwest fork was still the Missouri. (Lewis named the northwest fork the “Marias River.”) So, Lewis sent a man back for the rest of the team. Clark and the rest got to the great waterfalls. There, they found Lewis and his men burying the keelboat and some of their supplies for the trip back. “It weighs too much,” Lewis said. “We need to carry the boats around the waterfalls. That’s the only way to keep going up the Missouri River.”
   
They worked hard for 11 days. Then they left the great waterfalls behind. It was a hard trip. The river was getting harder to follow. That’s because it narrowed and filled with rocks.
   
But on the good side, Sacagawea was closer to the region where she had lived with the Shoshone. She could now guide the Corps better. That’s because she started to recognize the land where she had lived as a child. The more that she recognized, the more confidently she could guide them.
   
It was now August of 1805. Lewis told Clark, “I will take three men ahead on foot. We will stop following this winding river. If we find the Shoshone, we’ll come back with horses. We can use the horses to cross the mountains. Then we can look for the other river that we think flows down from the mountains all the way to the Pacific Ocean.”

A few days passed. Lewis and his men crossed a meadow. There, they spied a Shoshone horseman up ahead. But when he saw Lewis and his men, the horseman turned and rode away. The four men kept looking for the Shoshone. A few more days passed. Now they had reached the Rockies! Since the Louisiana Purchase, this now formed the west edge of the U.S.
   
The next day, they came upon an old Shoshone woman. She was picking up wood for a fire. Smiling, Lewis said in English, “We are friends.” She did not know English. But she knew when Lewis smiled that he was friendly. She led the four travelers to her village. She introduced Lewis to the chief. The Shoshone had lots of horses. But the Shoshone chief explained with sign language that the Shoshone did not have much food to share.
   
Two days later, Clark and the rest of the team got there with Sacagawea. Now, she could translate the chief’s words. She joined Lewis, Clark, and the chief in his cabin. It was dark. The only light was from the fire. With her help, the chief told the captains that his people did not know the way to the ocean. But he did know that a river ran down to it. He said that another tribe, the Nez Perce, could lead the team to the river. As she translated this, Sacagawea suddenly cried out. In the shadows of the chief’s home, she had not seen his face clearly. Now, as he turned more toward the light, she knew who he was. The chief was Sacagawea’s long-lost brother!
   
She threw her arms around him. And in a rush of words, she explained who she was. What a joyful surprise this was! In all of the Shoshone lands, Lewis had stumbled into the village of Sacagawea’s brother. Now the chief said, “My sister, I will help you and your friends. We will get all the horses, supplies, and guides that you will need in order to complete your trip.”

Chapter Eleven: To the Pacific and Back
   
The travelers got closer and closer to the Pacific. As they moved on, they met more Native Americans. This land was home to lots of Native Americans. They had lived there in settled communities for a long time.
   
Sacagawea helped the Corps cross the dangerous, snow-covered Rockies. By mid-August of 1805, the team had made it to the Continental Divide. This is the high line in the Rockies from which all rivers flow to the east on one side and to the west on the other. It was a great moment for the team. But tough, rocky trails lay ahead as they began their climb down the western slopes. When the Corps ran low on food, Sacagawea knew which berries and roots to eat. She helped to keep the men alive. Without her, it is unlikely that Lewis and Clark would have made it to the Pacific.
   
Sacagawea was a strong, brave woman. We have named mountains and rivers after her. There are statues of her all over the U.S. Two hundred years later, people still remember her. The U.S. has made a dollar coin that shows her picture.
   
The team also had the help of other Shoshones and the Nez Perce. Thus, the Corps crossed the Rockies, which had stood between them and the Pacific. A new, powerful river began in these mountains. The captains hoped to ride it downhill to the ocean. But the Nez Perce warned them. “In some parts, this river will rush through narrow rock canyons. It moves quickly with a strong force. It is hard to control a boat there. You could be hurt. Your boat could hit the canyon walls. Or it could hit the sharp rocks that stick out of the water.”
   
Clark and the group’s best canoeist climbed the rocks. They looked down at this part of the river. They heard the roar of the water, though they could not see it yet. It charged through the narrow canyon. They walked on top of the rock rim high that was high up. Clark asked the canoeist, “What do you think?”
   
“Captain,” the canoeist said, “I plan to play my fiddle at our next bivouac down the river. And that’s after we all get safely through this canyon.”

Clark grinned. “That’s what I hoped to hear. Let’s find the others.”
   
The men pushed off from the shore. The pirogues and canoes plunged into the rapids. The strong current pushed and pulled the boats. But the men worked well together. They steered past the rocks. They stayed away from the canyon walls. They kept their balance when the river threatened to tip over the boats. At last, they shot out the other end of the rocky canyon. They were now in calm water. John Shields turned to his young friend, George Shannon. “What do you think, George?”
   
Shannon said, “I was just starting to have fun. Do you think that they have more of those here?” Then both men laughed.
   
Soon, the men landed on an island. It was in the middle of the river. This was just short of the place where the river emptied into the sea. There, they had the help of nearby natives. They got through another long, cold, rainy winter. At last, the weather cleared. Now they could head the rest of the way to the Pacific.
   
There in front of them was the sight that they had hoped to see. They were at the Pacific Ocean. Some of the men cheered. Others stood in silent contentment.
   
Sacagawea was transfixed. She had never seen an ocean, much less a picture of one. Clark heard that a whale had washed up on a beach that was near them. He took Sacagawea to see the carcass. She told him, “I have come a long way with you to see the great waters. And now I have seen this monstrous whale, as well. I am so glad to see the sea!” Then she walked on the sand. She exultantly let the waves wash over her feet.

It was now March 23, 1806. It was some two years after they had first left St. Louis. The Corps now turned to head for home. They had mapped a great deal of the Louisiana Territory and beyond. That was from the Mississippi River to the Pacific. They now knew how to get to the Pacific. They could take the Missouri River to the Rockies. They could cross the Rockies on foot. And they could take other rivers to the Pacific Ocean @. They had made friends with lots of Native Americans. They found out that no one river ran all the way from the Mississippi to the Pacific. They had learned about lots of animals, birds, fish, and insects.
   
They had more adventures on the trip home, of course. But in the end, they all got back safely @. That was except for a few who chose not to go back. You’ll recall John Colter. He was the man from whom the Teton Sioux had taken a horse. He told Lewis, “I have had enough of cities and crowds. I will stay in the west. That’s if you will let me.” So, he went to live with the Mandan people. He said, “I’ll be here when you come back.” And more than one of his friends did go back later to visit him!
   
What about Sacagawea and her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, and their little son who was called “Pompey?” They went home to the Shoshone. Lewis and Clark told Sacagawea, “If it were not for you, we would not have succeeded.”
   
She said, “You showed me the great waters. We are friends. We helped each other.” Setting off toward home, Lewis and Clark watched Sacagawea, with her son in her arms, as they waved from the shore. And then they came to a bend in the river that blocked them from sight.
   
Months later, they reached home. There, they said their goodbyes and went their varied ways. Some would head to more adventures. Some would head to quieter lives. Perhaps you would like to know what happened to the four people who had been most responsible for the journey.

Meriwether Lewis became governor of the entire Louisiana Territory. William Clark became the governor of Missouri. Then, he spent much of the rest of his life working with Native Americans. That was on behalf of the government’s newly created Bureau of Indian Affairs. Thomas Jefferson served as president until 1809. Eight years later, James Monroe, who had helped Jefferson buy the Louisiana Territory, was himself elected as the 5th President of the United States.

    
@ A few editor’s notes:
   
On the westward leg of their trip, when they were west past the Rockies, the Lewis and Clark expedition traveled on three different rivers to get to the Pacific. They spent time on what we call today the Clearwater, the Snake, and the Columbia Rivers. Their full journey took them through what are 11 present-day U.S. States. And when they came back to Washington, D.C., they had traveled more than 7,000 miles in just under two-and-a-half years!
   
Despite the unknown challenges that they would face on their trip, they had only one casualty. Just one person died during the entire expedition. Sergeant Charles Floyd, Jr., died from a burst appendix near present-day Sioux City, Iowa. And that was early in the journey.
   
Sacagawea is thought to be one of the most famous women in U.S. history. The image of her, as a mother, is such an enduring part of her story that she is pictured with her son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, on the face of the U.S. Golden Dollar coin that was first minted in 2000.
   
Finally, Lewis and Clark were the most famous explorers of the west. But they were not the only ones. Another one was a U.S. Army officer named Zebulon Pike. In 1806, the same year that Lewis and Clark returned from their great journey, Pike set out toward the west from Missouri. He met the Arkansas River far upstream. He then followed it to its source in the Rockies. There, he sighted the mountain that’s named for him today. It’s called Pike’s Peak. And it’s in current-day Colorado.

   
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)   
       

Lesson 39 – Investigating Forces

    
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Chapter One: A Push And A Pull
   
The Big Question: What is a force? And what are balanced and unbalanced forces?
   
Think about initiating your day. You wake up and push yourself out of bed. You pull a box of cereal from the shelf and pour that cereal into a porringer. You lift a carton of milk and pour it into a cup. Then, you lift cereal and milk to your mouth as you eat and drink.
   
You’re not arising each dayspring thinking that you’re using forces to do all of these. But that’s what you’re doing. A force is something that causes something else to move. Forces can be pushes, or they can be pulls. Each time that something changes its speed or changes its direction, that’s a force in action.
   
Motion is a change of position. Think of it like dropkicking a ball. You use your leg as a force to push the ball and make it start moving, which changes its rapidity. Before the force, the ball was not moving. After the force, it was moving. As the ball changes its locus, it is in motion. What about changing direction? Well, you could run after the ball and kick it from the side. You’d thus push the ball with your leg in another direction. This makes a modification to the direction of the ball.
   
Another way of thinking about it is using a bicycle. A person riding a bicycle pushes on the pedals to start the locomotion process. They push on the handlebars to change direction. And they stop pedaling and pull on the brake. That makes the bicycle stop moving. These forces help the bicycle and its rider to change speed and direction.
   
If a force is being used on something, does it mean that it has to change speed or direction? Well, not always. Start envisioning that two teams are playing tug-of-war. There’s lots of bravado on both sides. Wagers are being made on which team will win. If the teams pull on the rope with the same potency, the rope won’t move. One team is pulling in one direction. And the other team is pulling in an antithetical direction. The forces are equal and balanced, with one side’s “pull” indistinguishable from the other side’s. And the rope does not change speed or direction, even though forces pull on it.

What happens if one team starts to pull the rope with more vehemence? The forces on the rope now become unbalanced forces. That is what happens with forces most of the time. It is what causes something to change its speed or direction. The rope will start to move towards the team that pulls on it with more ferocity. You can just hear the leading team yelling brickbats at their slowly losing challengers!
   
Now imagine the tug-of-war rope sitting on the ground. Nobody is pulling on it. Are forces acting on it now? Yes! The force of gravity is always pulling down on the rope. But the ground also pushes up against the rope. The forces are the same, acting in opposite directions. Thus, they are balanced forces with equal tensity. How could you make the forces disproportionate? By pulling on the rope and picking it up!
   
Forces are all around you, all of the time. You can see or feel lots of them in action. That’s especially when the forces are unbalanced. You might feel a push when someone pushes you on a swing set. Or you might feel a pull when someone tugs on your shirt.
   
A force that you can’t see, but one that you do feel, is gravity. Gravitation is a force that pulls things together. The Earth is very big, so it pulls on things like you. Where does gravity pull you? Towards Earth’s center. That’s why it pulls you downward. Like with the tug-of-war rope, there are forces acting on you. That’s even when you are standing or sitting still. Gravity pulls you down. But the force of the ground pushes up against you with the same strength. The forces are balanced, so you don’t float away or sink downward.
   
When you walk, you push against the ground to move your body. If you push a lot, you can jump. The forces become unbalanced, and you move away from the direction that you pushed.
   
Now, let’s take two dogs playing with a rope toy. When the dogs pull the toy with the same amount of force, the toy does not move. The forces are balanced. They have the same strength, but in opposite directions.

One way to understand forces is to draw arrows to be designations for their directions. One dog pulls the rope toy to the left. The other dog pulls the toy to the right. Using arrows on pictures can help us model, or show, that all forces have direction.
   
So, how can we make the force unbalanced? Well, maybe one dog is larger than the other dog. It can pull with a stronger force. If the forces are not the same, then they are unbalanced. What happens when two forces of different strengths pull on the same object? The object will move toward the weightier pull. When two forces of different strength push on an object, the object moves away from the stronger push. When pushes and pulls are balanced, the object will not move.
   
Now think. Is it thinkable to prognosticate if something will move when it is pushed or pulled? It is! If you think about the strength and direction of all the forces acting on an object, you can predict the object’s motion. You can draw pictures and arrows to help explain what causes something to change direction or speed.

Chapter Two: Friction
   
The Big Question: How is friction a force?
   
Have you ever tried to walk on ice? If you have, you assumably know how easy it is to see how one totters and falls. That’s because there is little friction between your shoes and the ice. You don’t slip when you walk on a granular sidewalk. There is a lot of friction between the sidewalk and your shoes.
   
Friction is the force that exists between two surfaces that are touching each other. Friction opposes motion or potential motion. When there is little friction, surfaces slide smoothly across each other. Friction reduces the slipping or even stops motion. Friction is a contact force. This means that it happens where surfaces touch each other. For example, your shoes touch the sidewalk as you walk. Then the force of friction helps you to impel yourself forward.
   
No object is completely smooth. Even things that look smooth have bumps too small to see or feel. When two objects rub against each other, those bumps push against each other. Some surfaces have lots of coarseness. Such rough surfaces produce a lot of friction when in contact with other objects. Other surfaces are smooth. Such planate surfaces produce less friction when in contact with another surface.
   
Think about hurrying through different rooms wearing just socks and no shoes. You are less likely to slip on a carpeted surface than you are on a smooth floor.
   
Let’s demonstrate friction like this. Imagine a wooden block on a wooden ramp. The ramp is tilted so that the block should slide down. Are there forces acting on the block now? Yes. Gravity is pulling it down, and the ramp is pushing against the block. But the forces are unbalanced. The ramp is not pushing in the opposite direction of gravity. That’s because it is at an angle. So why is the block not moving? That’s because of friction.

The wooden surfaces of the block and the ramp are creating enough friction in the opposite direction of the ramp. It is forestalling the potential motion of the block. The forces of gravity and the ramp pushing on the block are unbalanced. But when you add the force of friction, it becomes balanced. So, how do you move the block if friction is stopping it? Well, you could push the block down the ramp. You could also lift the ramp so that one end is higher, and the ramp’s angle is steeper. If you lifted the ramp enough, the forces of gravity, the ramp, and friction would no longer be balanced. Eventually, the block would start to slide down the ramp.
   
Have you ever been outside in the cold and rubbed your hands together to warm them up? If you have, you were making use of friction. When two surfaces rub against each other, the agitation between them can cause heat. You can feel the heat produced by friction between your moving hands. The longer you rub them together, and the harder and faster they press against each other, the more heat will be made.
   
If two surfaces rub together only fleetingly or gently, the friction will not cause much heat. Sometimes, the heat will be very small and hard to notice. Try taking a pair of socks and feeling how warm they are. Then put them on and slide your feet across the floor. After you do, do your socks feel any warmer?
   
Other times, enough heat caused by friction can be very effective. It is possible to rub string and wood together hard and fast enough that the friction can create enough heat to start a fire. It can be useful to know how to start a fire using friction. But heat from friction is not always helpful.

Engines, such as the ones that make cars and planes move, have lots of moving parts. The parts are in contact with each other a lot. Thus, they are affected by the force of friction. The friction results in heat, and over time, the effect of friction and heat vitiates the parts of machines. The parts can wear out and break.
   
Engineers use materials called lubricants to reduce friction between machine parts. A lubricant is a substance that coats the surfaces of parts that rub against each other to make them more slippery. You can say that the substance “lubricates” the parts. Grease and oil are common lubricants. Lubricants help machine parts last longer.
   
Where else can friction be found? Try thinking about water and air. They can push on things to create friction, too. When you run around, you might feel the wind blowing on your face if you run fast enough. That’s the air moving around as you move through it, creating friction. It even creates a little bit of heat.
   
Air friction is called air resistance, or drag. Athletes such as professional bikers and swimmers wear special uniforms. These reduce the amount of drag that they experience as they race. Cars experience drag, too. The people who design cars try to create body shapes that create as little drag as possible. Less drag means that a car can go faster.
   
Engineers don’t always try to reduce friction. Often, they design ways to make use of friction. For example, tires are willfully designed with bumps and grooves on the surface that rolls on the road. Those bumps are called tread. Tread increases the friction between the surfaces of tires and the road. Without tread, a car or a bicycle might slip and slide instead of rolling over a very smooth surface.
   
Using the brake on a car or bike causes brake pads to press against the rims of the wheels. The force of friction causes the wheels to slow down and eventually stop. Don’t touch a brake right after it touches a wheel to slow it down. It will probably be very hot from the friction that it just caused!

Chapter Three: Predicting The Patterns Of Motion
   
The Big Question: Is it possible to predict the motion of an object moving in a regular pattern?
   
Forces can get things moving. A force can also change the speed or direction of an object’s motion. What can happen when regular forces help move an object up and down, side to side, back and forth, or in a zigzag motion? You may be able to notice a systematic pattern of motion as a result.
   
Think about a swing set. Once the force of your muscles gets you going, you can stop applying force, and your motion will become regular. You go backward and forward, up and down. At that point, you are being affected by just gravity and friction. At the highest point of the swing, you are at rest for just a moment. At that short moment, only the force of gravity is acting on you. What happens next? The force of gravity will pull you down, and you will move backward to a high point on the other side. However, the force of friction will mean that you will travel just a little bit less far each time that you swing. After that, you will stop for a moment, and swing forward again.
   
This motion will repeat, over and over, until either your motion path degrades enough to come to a stop, or you apply another force. You could record data of your movements in a science notebook. Then you could use the data to prove that your movement is a surefire pattern. To make a prediction is to say that something is expected to happen. Knowing how an object moves in a pattern helps you predict where and how it will move next.
   
Let’s try thinking about another pattern. You and a friend of yours are sitting on a seesaw. You use the force of your leg muscles to push yourself up. This force is greater than the force of gravity that’s acting on you. Thus, you and your side of the seesaw move upward. When this happens, your friend moves down.

When your friend is all the way down, they will push themself up with the force of their leg muscles. This sends their side of the seesaw upward and yours downward. As long as you and your friend keep pushing with the same force in your legs, you will move in a predictable pattern.
   
Now, let’s think about an old grandfather clock, one with hands. Do you know how it moves? The hands on the clock move because of the regular pattern of the clock’s pendulum. The pendulum is a long, weighted device in which a weight called a “bob” swings back and forth. Lots of old clocks show the pendulum in the center. Each swing of the pendulum takes the same amount of time. And this regular motion causes the clock’s hands to move. This means that it is a predictable pattern that repeats over and over.
   
A pendulum works much like a swing set. It moves back and forth, experiencing the same forces, gravity and friction, as it moves. Forces are applied by the clock’s gears to keep the pendulum moving. A clock is a very good way to tell how movement can be predicted. As its pendulum swings, time ticks on. It is easy to predict future motion if you can describe its current patterns. The pendulum swings left, center, right, back to center, and back to left. Then it repeats, over and over. It moves the clock’s hands as it swings. The second-hand points to all of the numbers in 60 seconds, the minute hand in an hour, and the hour hand in 12 hours.
   
What else can we think of to describe patterns? Let’s think about tetherballs. You and your friend have found one and are playing with it. It is a foam ball attached to the top of a pole by a string. The goal is to get the string wrapped all the way around the pole. You give the ball a push, and it wraps around the pole three times. If you hit the ball again with the same force, what will happen this time? It should go around three more times. You hit the ball again, and that’s what happens. If your friend never hits the ball themselves, the ball will keep wrapping around the pole in the direction that you push it in.
     
It’s easy to predict possible motion once you understand the regular patterns that an object in motion has. Think about other things that move in circles, up and down, and back and forth. When you see how they move, you can predict how they will move next.

Chapter Four: Magnetic Force
   
The Big Question: What is magnetism?
   
You place a magnet on the side of a refrigerator, and it sticks. You hold it over a pile of paperclips, and some of the clips move towards the magnet. You move it near another magnet, and it pushes away. Why does any of this happen? That is because of a force called magnetism. Magnetism is an invisible force that acts on lots of metal objects, like fridges and paperclips. Most forces exist between objects that touch each other. Magnetism is different. It acts across a distance. Objects affected by it don’t have to be touching each other.
   
People first learned about magnetism from a rock called lodestone. Lodestone has a lot of iron in it. Magnetism happens naturally in lodestones. But natural magnets are rare. People can turn some metals into magnets, though. This process is called magnetizing an object. Magnets are most often made of iron. But other types of metal can be magnetized, too. A metal that has been magnetized is called magnetic.
   
Magnets contain metal, and they often affect other metal objects. That is true even if those other metal objects are not magnetic themselves. Your refrigerator door is not magnetic. But you can hang pictures on it using a magnet. Magnets do not affect objects that aren’t metal. Wood, water, and plastic are examples of things that are not attracted by magnets.
   
Two magnets affect each other in predictable ways. Sometimes they push each other. The pushing force makes them move farther apart. When two magnets are pushing each other apart, you can push harder to move the magnets together. The force of your pushing can overpower the force of the two magnets. Other times, magnets pull each other. The pulling force makes them move closer together. Magnets that pull each other will usually move closer together until they touch. Very strong magnets can be hard to pull apart or push together. Both magnetic pulls and magnetic pushes happen across a distance. If you put a thin piece of paper between two magnets that are pulling on each other, they will continue to pull each other.

A magnet has magnetic poles. One pole is called the north pole. The other pole is called the south pole. Each magnet has two opposite poles. When the north poles of two different magnets face each other, the magnets repel. When magnets are resisting each other, it means that they push each other away. When the same poles of two different magnets are near each other, they will repel. The south poles of two magnets repel each other, too. When the north pole of one magnet faces the south pole of another magnet, the magnets attract. Two magnets attract each other when they pull toward each other. When the opposite poles of two magnets are near each other, they will attract.
   
A magnet does not have to touch an object to attract it. At the same time, a magnet that is too far from a metal object will not affect it at all. The closer that a magnet is to some metals, the stronger its attraction. Magnetism also affects some metals more strongly than others. Iron is a metal that is strongly affected by magnetism. The metal nickel (but not the U.S. coin: per Britannica, the coin is made of “cupronickel,” which is 75% copper, 25% nickel) also responds to magnetism. Nickel is one of the metals used to make a lot of magnets. Cans that food comes in are mostly made of steel. These cans can be picked up using a magnet because steel is made mostly of iron.
   
Lots of metals are not affected by magnets, however. The metal aluminum (or “aluminium“) does not respond to magnetism. Cans made of aluminum cannot be picked up using a magnet. Lots of refrigerators are made with stainless steel. Stainless steel is not attracted to magnets. Some companies use regular steel behind the stainless steel. That way, magnets can stick to the refrigerator.

How else can magnetism be useful? Well, these are some examples. Computers and household electronics use magnets to store data in computer memory. Electronic speakers also use magnets to produce sounds that you hear, including from a cell phone and computer speakers. Medical machines can use magnets to see inside the body (“Magnetic Resonance Imaging” machines, or an MRI, or MRIs). A computer receives the signals that show changes in magnetism. The machine converts those signals to pictures of what is inside the human body.
   
Compasses use magnets to show direction. The needle of the compass is magnetic and is affected by the Earth’s magnetic field. This means that when it points north, it doesn’t point to the “geographic” North Pole. It points to the North Magnetic Pole! (The two aren’t in the same place, though they are fairly close. Per Space.com, the North Magnetic Pole is currently on Ellesmere Island in Canada. That’s about 310 miles from the geographic North Pole.)
   
Jewelry clasps are small and hard to hook together. By using the attraction of magnets, a magnetic clasp is easy to put together. You just put the ends of a magnetic jewelry clasp near each other, and they pull together.

Chapter Five: Solving Problems With Magnetism
   
The Big Question: What kinds of problems can be solved with magnets?
   
People make notes to remind themselves of important things. One problem is that it can be easy to forget about a reminder note. The note has to be in a place where you are likely to see it.
   
Engineers know that people have problems, wants, and needs. For example, you might want a way to hang notes where you are likely to see them. And perhaps you want to do this without using sticky tape or tacks that would damage your walls. Magnets provide a solution for the problem. A magnet sticks to a refrigerator. It can hold a note where people are likely to see it. And the magnet is easy to remove without leaving any perdurable marks. A refrigerator magnet is a solution designed to solve a problem. It’s a simple solution. But it works.
   
Suppose that you have a room with a big, empty wall, and it needs some decoration. You decide that you want to hang a picture. But the picture is heavy. Walls in most homes are hollow with frames inside them. The frames are made of boards called studs. Often the studs are made of wood. The smooth wall material that you see in a room is not strong enough to hold a heavy picture or a TV. If you want to hang something heavy on a wall, you must put a nail or screw into one of the wooden studs that you can’t see. Though the studs are made of wood, they contain lots of hidden nails and screws. Nails and screws are made of metal.
   
How can you find a wooden wall stud? That is a problem. But engineers design solutions to problems. Engineers solved this problem by designing stud finders. A stud finder has a magnet inside. The magnet is attracted to metal nails in the studs behind the solid wall. It detects where nails are. This reveals where the studs are and where you can securely place a picture hook. Engineers used magnetism to design and build stud finders. And they really work.

Ordinary trains have metal wheels that run on metal tracks. The friction between the track and the wheels is necessary for movement. But it also wears out the train’s moving parts. The need to make a train that works with less friction is an engineering problem. Engineers designed and developed trains that use magnets for motion. What a solution! The magnetic trains are called maglevs. Maglevs use magnetism so that the train floats above the track without metal wheels. That means less friction.
   
About eight hundred years ago, a man named Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt invented the first compasses. He knew that magnets pointed to the north and south. He also knew that a needle could be made magnetic. It would then point to the north and south. All that was left to do was design a way for the needle to float. He used his knowledge of magnets and magnetic poles to suggest a way to find direction. He first designed a solution to a problem. Perhaps he made a model first, or perhaps he drew it out on paper. After he made his engineering design, he could proceed to build a compass.
   
When engineers look for a solution to a problem, they first design what they want to create. They also think about these four challenges:
   
1. How long will it take to solve the problem? If a long time, will it be worth the result?
   
2. How much will it cost to solve the problem? Will the solution cost more money than it saves? And can it be done with the amount of money that the engineers have available?
   
3. What materials are needed to solve the problem? Can the materials be obtained? Do they even exist?
   
4. What are some things that cannot or are not allowed to be done?
   
Even eight hundred years ago, de Maricourt asked these questions. In fact, as long as people need to solve problems, their design process will involve thinking about these factors – time, cost, materials, and limits – to come up with the best solution possible.

Chapter Six: Forces and Trains
   
The Big Question: How have engineers and their designs improved trains over time?
   
Elijah McCoy was born in Canada. His parents had been slaves in Kentucky. They escaped to freedom on the Underground Railroad before Elijah was born. The family moved to Michigan. That state did not have slavery. Elijah got training as a mechanical engineer. But he could not get a good job. Most places at that time would not hire African-Americans for jobs that paid well. He found low-paying work at a railroad company. There, even though improving trains was not his job, he found solutions to problems, anyway. His inventions helped to shape the Industrial Revolution.
   
Before trains, people transported materials by foot, by animals, or by boat. Trains made it possible to move large amounts of things that people needed across great distances. Trains are made of heavy metal. They can carry people and cargo. They also carry fuel for the train to move. All of this makes trains very heavy. A train at rest is hard to move. When trains are at rest, forces are balanced. The train must create an unbalanced force to start to move.
   
Engineers like Elijah McCoy studied the problem of making a train move. They developed lots of different solutions to the problem of overcoming the forces of gravity and friction.
   
Early trains were large, metal locomotives made from heavy materials. They burned coal or wood to heat a tank of water. The water became steam. And the motion of moving steam created energy to turn the wheels of the train.
   
One way to solve the problem of getting a train to start moving is to make it out of lighter metals. A train that’s made from such metals needs less force to set it into motion.
   
Starting a train moving is one problem. There are other problems in building working trains. Friction and heat cause engines to wear out. Engineers have to design wheels that have just enough, but not too much, friction with the tracks.

Lubrication is a solution for friction. But in McCoy’s day, lubricating engines had a problem. To be lubricated, the train had to be stopped. That slowed down service. It also meant that more fuel was needed to make the train move again. The process was expensive. To lubricate train engines was part of Elijah McCoy’s job. He invented a way to do it without stopping the train. Then he found ways to make his invention even better. He also invented other solutions that solved lots of other train problems. He used the principles of engineering design to make sure that his invention would work.
   
Whenever he made something new, he got a patent for it. A patent is a certificate from the government. It gives an inventor credit for an invention. Only the inventor can make money from a patented invention for a certain period of time. Elijah ended up with sixty patents for the engineering designs and things that he invented!
   
Mr. McCoy was an engineering designer and an engineer, too. People in his profession have continued to make trains better. They develop trains that weigh less. By studying forces and motion, they learn to get trains to start and move faster. Modern trains also meet strict standards for pollution control.
   
Engineers have improved on McCoy’s efforts. They have developed magnetic trains, or maglevs. Maglevs don’t use wheels and tracks like regular trains do. They use magnets. The force of magnetism can cause an entire train to be lifted above the track and be moved forward. That removes almost all of the friction. That’s because the train and tracks never come into contact. Removing friction makes train rides quiet and smooth, and fast too.
   
The word maglev is short for magnetic levitation. Levitation means floating in the air. It comes from the Latin word “levis,” meaning “light.” Maglevs levitate. Maglevs are designed with magnets in both the trains and the track. The force of magnets’ same poles pushes the train up off of the track. The push between the magnets is stronger than the force of gravity pulling the train down. So, the train seems to float above the track. And since no surfaces are touching, there is no friction. This allows maglev trains to move very fast. (With a quick Google search, you’ll find that maglev trains have been clocked at a top speed of 311 miles-per-hour!).
   
Maglev magnets are electrical. They can be turned on and off. Their poles can be switched. Their strength can also be controlled. Computers control the magnets so that their repelling forces move the train along the track without touching it. Train engineers have followed in the footsteps of Elijah McCoy. Engineers are always improving maglev technology to improve how the trains work. More and better maglevs are appearing in countries all over the world.

     
    
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Glossary
   
attract, to pull something closer.
   
   
balanced forces, a collection of forces acting on an object that cancel each other out and produce no change in the object’s motion.
    
    
contact force, a push or pull between two objects that are touching each other.
   
    
force, a push or a pull.

friction, a force that occurs between the surfaces of two objects that are touching.
   
   
gravity, a force that pulls objects together; Earth’s size means that its gravity is powerful, and it pulls objects towards its surface.
   
   
lubricant, a substance that reduces friction between objects in contact.
   
   
magnet, a material that applies the force of magnetism.

magnetic poles, the places on a magnet where the magnetic force is strongest.

magnetism, a force that can push or pull on some materials without touching them.

motion, the process of an object changing position.
   
    
oppose, to work against.
   
    
pattern, something that keeps repeating.

predict, to say that something is expected to happen.

problem, a want or need that requires a solution.
   
   
repel, to push away from.
   
    
solution, a plan or object that solves a problem.
    
    
unbalanced forces, a collection of forces acting on an object that result in a change in the object’s motion.
     
     
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Illustration Subtitles. Think about the forces that you use to prepare and eat a breakfast. Riding a bicycle, you can use force to start moving, change direction, or stop moving. The tug-of-war rope does not move when the two teams pull on it with equal forces in opposite directions. Gravity pulls you downward. You push against the force with your legs and body. The dogs in this picture pull the rope with the same force in two different directions. This yellow triangle shaped sign warns that there may be little friction between your shoes and the surface that you are walking on. If you see it, be careful! There is little friction between the bottom of this sled and the surface of the snow. This means that the sled can slide easily. Feet in socks slip and slide on a smooth floor, but they don’t slip against the rough material of a carpeted floor. The block stays at rest on this piece of wood on the slope because of friction. On a swing set, what forces get the swing moving, and what forces keep it moving? What is the pendulum’s pattern of motion, and how can you predict where it will move? Magnetism does not affect objects if those objects do not have any metal. In this picture, a toy car has a magnet taped to its top. The magnet is being pulled by the other magnet. Which direction will the toy car move? Opposite poles attract, and same poles repel. Magnetic force can pull on some metal objects through other metal objects. When you look at the orange wall, you cannot tell where the studs are. Hidden inside the wall are studs that contain metal screws or nails. Engineers use the properties of a magnet to solve the problem of finding where a nail is in a stud behind a wall. Most modern passenger trains have metal wheels that roll on metal tracks. Too much friction between the wheels and the track is a problem. A maglev train works without wheels touching the tracks. That’s a solution. Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt was a French scholar. He figured out how to use magnets to find directions. A modern compass is lightweight and easy to carry in a pocket. Engineers work on solutions to problems. They often work in teams. Elijah McCoy was an engineer and inventor who lived from 1844 to 1929. A long train needs a powerful force to get moving. Getting a train moving takes force. But keeping it moving also takes force to overcome friction and gravity. McCoy’s automatic lubricator worked as the train was moving. It saved railroads a lot of time and money.
     
   
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Lesson 40 – “Heard It On The Radio Words” 001

    
NEW WORDS: Adkins, Audrey, Barbie, Barney, Beckett’s, Cassie, Compton, Cuban, Darryl, Delacruz, Duarte, Edwards, Galindo, Garry, Jaclyn, Java, Krystal, Lillie, Lucille, Lynch, Marcel, Marlene, Marquez, McGuire, Melinda, Mildred, Roddy, Ruben, Spangler, Virgil, Westin, accessories, archives, audio, automotive, bashed, bipartisanship, blogs, brand’s, brands, canon, casino, chock, commissioner, conspiracy, counseling, cutesy, demographic, diplomatic, downloads, dynamics, eBay, engagement, forums, galleries, gluten, harassment, homepage, instructional, journalism, keywords, lagging, login, lyrics, mainstream, molecular, neanderthal, newsletter, organizational, parental, philosophical, polluters, pricing, productivity, programming, questionnaire, regulatory, reliability, rentals, reportedly, ringtones, spectacular, sprawl, subscribes, suburban, supportive, surveillance, tattoos, updates, website’s, websites, wireless
   
   

Hey Barney, have you heard the silly conspiracy theory that aliens have taken over City Council?
   
The new machines on the assembly line have improved productivity by eight percent.
   
The bad dynamics between President Adkins and Speaker of the House McGuire don’t bode well for bipartisanship.
   
In today’s economics class, Ms. Galindo taught us about the canon of lagging indicators.
   
Darryl, go to their website’s homepage and see if you can find the “contact us” link.
   
Jaclyn, are you getting decent rates with your wireless network?
   
Which brands of bread in the grocery offer gluten-free options?
   
Lillie is facing harassment from neighbors who think that her dog barks too much.
   
Westin and I went to four exquisite art galleries during our vacation in Santa Fe.
   
This year’s fireworks display was simply spectacular.
   
Supply chain issues have boosted rates for car rentals.
   
My sister Mildred is studying computer programming in college.
   
The new CEO, Ms. Edwards, needs a copy of our organizational chart, pronto!
   
Why have our sales to the Gen-Z demographic plummeted?
   
If scientists are going to figure this out, they’re going to have to get down to the molecular level.

There are two good automotive parts stores within three miles of my house.
   
The reliability of this brand’s cars is second to none.
   
Garry, if you go to a casino when you’re in Las Vegas, make sure that you set a rock-solid limit on how much money you will allow yourself to lose.
   
Marlene subscribes to two different guitar magazines.
   
In my opinion, the best journalism gives all sides of a story, focuses primarily on facts, and keeps opinions to a very bare minimum.
   
Ruben, what in the world do the bizarre lyrics in this song mean?
   
Virgil, the product with the best pricing isn’t necessarily the product with the best quality.
   
The classroom instructional practices in this school are really robust.
   
Senator Marquez is reportedly going to run for President in the next election.
   
The parental settings on my computer keep my kids from accessing bad websites.
   
We have the suspect under surveillance twenty-four hours a day.
   
The suburban sprawl in our city has created huge traffic issues.
   
Ambassador Lynch is a long-term veteran of the diplomatic corps.
   
The Commissioner of Baseball is in a big battle with the team owners.
   
I can’t stand the “cutesy” ringtones that some people have on their phones.

Krystal, I found some great old out-of-print comic books on eBay.
   
It takes forever for downloads to finish loading on my neanderthal computer.
   
The archives that contain documents on Ancient Greece are on the 4th floor.
   
With my purchase of a new set of golf clubs, I also got some accessories like golf balls, tees, a golf glove, etc.
   
Senator Spangler is supportive of the President’s proposed legislation.
    
Despite some pretty deep philosophical differences between Roddy and me, we still happen to be very close friends.
   
The candidate has set up three town hall forums in the Northeast during the next month.
   
Audrey has been reading lots of different blogs about the benefits and dangers of artificial intelligence.
   
Melinda, make sure that your resume is chock full of keywords that will target you in a hiring search.
   
Cassie has spent a lot of money on high-end audio equipment for her new Jeep.
   
Barbie had her ten best friends attend an engagement party.
   
Getting one or more tattoos is now a pretty mainstream practice for young adults.
   
Ms. Delacruz really enjoys counseling high school students as they enter into a college search process.
   
Thank goodness the Cuban Missile Crisis did not turn into a nuclear war!
   
The programming code for Beckett’s website is Java-based.

Lucille, never give your login identification to anyone else; it needs to stay private!
   
In the questionnaire that Marcel filled out, he bashed the company regarding their lousy tech support.
   
Mr. Compton gets a good weekly newsletter that covers new trends in education technology.
   
The regulatory climate in the current Congress takes a pretty tough stance regarding polluters.
   
Be ready to give Mrs. Duarte updates on sales trends as soon as she returns from her vacation.

   
   
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Click on this link to move forward to Module F, Lessons 41 – 50
   

      
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