8th Grade Social Studies:

Iowa City or Town Project

During fourth quarter you will spend some time studying Iowa’s history and culture in social studies. As a

joint research project between social studies and English, you are going to choose a town in Iowa and research it. Only one person per town.  A list will be posted in Mr. K's room to sign up for your town-- first come, first serve!

You will be using your information to do a research paper for Mrs. K and a Powerpoint presentation for Mr. K.  The same information will be used for both, it will just be presented in different ways.  You will need to use the Iowa City/Town Source Breakdown Sheet to gather and organize your research to be used for both projects.  

The research paper will follow the standard essay format with intro, body paragraphs, and a conclusion, but will also include a Works Cited and in-text citations.

Your Power Point should include but is not limited to:

1. The early history of the town. Tell us about how the town started, and about

some of the people and businesses that first settled there, and any other

significant history about your town.

2. The later history of the town. How the town has changed over the years, did it

grow? did it decline? how was it effected by history. Some towns were affected

during wars,(especially WWI and WWII) changes in the economy (depression,

recessions, etc), natural disasters (floods, tornadoes, etc), and any other events

that caused changes in the course of your towns history.

3. Give some geographical information on your town. (What county is it located

in? What were the 1990 and the 2000 census figures of the town, show us

where it is on a map of Iowa.) You can also find all of the population figures at

factfinder.census.gov . Ask me for help if you can’t find what you’re looking for

4. Tell about how your town exists today. Tell about any major businesses and

other attractions such as historical landmarks, parks, etc. Try to find what the

town plans on doing in the future to continue to grow. Finally, you must predict

what you think will happen to this town in the next 25 years.

5. Your power point should have at least 6 slides, and no more than 10. It should

include a picture or visual for each slide. The visuals or pictures need to pertain

to the subject matter discussed on the slide. If you want to have a slide that is

just pictures that is fine, but you still need to have a visual or picture on every

other slide too.

Some other tips:

When choosing a town try to find one that has a government

and/or a chamber of commerce, this makes it easier to get

information.

Things you are looking for: early and later history, major

businesses, historical or other types of attractions such as parks,

if their community is planning further development and how they

are going about doing it.

Some towns have their own website and these prove to be very

useful. Look for this before you do any of your own research!

Keep your slides short and to the point! This is not a research

paper or informative essay. The show should be informative and

interesting, not just a bunch of copy and pasted information.