Regions of Our Country (OR Edition)

Students study the Indigenous people and geography of Oregon, then meet the four core social sciences and how each one helps explain a place. Those tools carry into a first look at the regions of the United States.

Population density explains a lot about how people live, in cities and in rural areas alike. Students look at who lives where in Oregon and why, including how income and opportunity shape those choices, then compare with the Northeast.

Geography shapes where people settle and how they live, and history shapes who gets to share in a place. Students trace settlement patterns and the experience of discrimination in Oregon, then study the Southeast through all four social sciences.

Technology changes what an economy produces, and laws shape who benefits. Students examine how machines reshaped Oregon's farms and factories and how segregation and suffrage laws affected people there, then turn to agricultural change across the Midwest.

Land and water are limited, and people compete over both. Students study conflicts over land in Oregon's past and weigh needs against wants in a budget, then examine competing claims on the Colorado River in the Southwest.

Migration reshapes a place for everyone already living there. Students examine how westward expansion led to Oregon statehood and what it meant for the state's Indigenous people, then look at what has drawn people to the West as a region.