Analyze the causes of the Dust Bowl, including drought and farming practices, and its effects, including migration from the Great Plains, as an example of human-environment interaction (TEKS US History RC2 Geography and Culture; RC4 Science, Technology, and Society).

What this topic is asking

The Dust Bowl of the 1930s is the STAAR course's clearest lesson in geography and human-environment interaction. The TEKS want you to explain its causes (drought combined with farming practices) and its effects (the migration of thousands of families off the Great Plains). This is a core Reporting Category 2 (Geography and Culture) topic, with ties to Category 4 (Science, Technology, and Society).

The causes

This is exactly the "human-environment interaction" the geography strand tests: the disaster was neither purely natural nor purely human, but both.

The dust storms

The storms were staggering. Walls of dust rolled across the plains, blotting out the sun, burying homes and equipment, killing livestock, and making people sick. The worst days, like "Black Sunday" in 1935, turned afternoon into night. Year after year, the storms destroyed the ability to farm.

The migration

These migrants often found hardship rather than relief: California had few jobs to spare during the Depression, and migrants faced low wages and hostility. Their plight became a symbol of the era (captured in John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath). The migration reshaped the population of the West.

The significance

Try this

Q1. State the two main causes of the Dust Bowl. [2]

• Cue. A severe drought combined with poor farming practices (plowing up the native grasses and over-farming), which left the dry soil exposed to wind erosion.

Q2. Explain how the Dust Bowl illustrates human-environment interaction. [2]

• Cue. Human farming practices (removing native grasses, over-plowing) combined with a natural drought to create the disaster, showing that human activity and the physical environment together shaped the event and forced migration.