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Agricultural Literacy Curriculum Matrix


Illinois Agriculture in the Classroom

Companion Resource

Jerry Stanley

Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp

This highly readable portrait is about the Okies driven to California by the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s and the formidable hardships they faced. The desperation of their lives in the Midwest is described and then we follow the Okes on their trek across the western United States to the promise of work in California, where their hopes are dashed. Weedpatch Camp is the farm-labor camp built by the federal government, that educator Leo Hart creates a federal emergency school. The book includes period black and white photographs depicting the hardships and the school.

Author
Jerry Stanley
Lessons Associated with this Resource