California's Promise

California's landscape opens the program with the state's four natural regions and the geographic features that set it apart. Students use maps to locate cities and notable places across the state.

California's Native peoples are the focus here, with students meeting the California Indians who lived in different parts of the state. Students examine their daily activities, their shelters, the foods they eat, and how they adapt to the state's varied geography.

European exploration comes next, covering which countries first explored the California coast and why they came. Students consider the challenges those explorers faced and why some of them chose to settle.

Missions and ranchos anchor this unit, starting with the goals of the Spanish missionaries and daily life at the missions for both priests and California Indians. Students also explore the cattle ranches of Mexican California and the signs of Mexican influence today.

Statehood and the Gold Rush cover the changes that came to California in the mid-1800s and the events that pushed it to join the United States. Students follow the gold miners who poured into new towns and gold fields after 1848.

California's growth began with the railroad, built across the Great Plains and the Sierra Nevada by Irish and Chinese workers. Students compare the immigrant groups who arrived after 1850 and study the systems that bring water to farms and cities.

The 1930s and 1940s brought hard times and major world events to California. Students discover how Californians survived when the country struggled, and what changes those years brought to the state.