Albuquerque's
Environmental StoryAlbuquerque's
Environmental StoryKeep a record of the school lunchroom menu for a week. Identify five or six of the most frequently used foods, corn, wheat, beef, etc., for further study. Compile a chart similar to the one below. Visit a farmers' market to see which of these foods are currently grown locally.
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Food |
Place of Origin |
Introduction into Our Diet |
Major Source of the Products |
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Wheat |
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Corn |
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Beef |
Where was each of these plants and animal products first domesticated?
How and when were these foods shown introduced into our diet? Use a world map to trace the routes.
Which of these foods were grown by Indians in the early Pueblos? Which were grown by the Spanish setters in New Mexico? Which are not grown in the Albuquerque area?
What changes have taken place in agriculture in the Albuquerque are since World War 11? Explain.
How are the non-local foods shown on the chart transported to Albuquerque?
What systems are involved in the transportation, storage, and distribution of foods which are not grown locally?
What effect would natural problems such as drought, or societal problems such as strikes and depression, have on the production, transportation, and distribution of these food products?
What would be the effect(s) on these systems if Albuquerque's population suddenly rose?
Use boxes, adobe bricks or paper mache models of Indian Pueblos and of contemporary houses. Taos Pueblos are often likened to apartment houses.
How are relationships among residents of Taos Pueblo and of apartment houses similar?
How are they different?
How are Pueblos very different economically from apartment houses?
What social systems and customs bind Indians of the same Pueblo to each other?
Prepare a chart comparing the effects on the land of Indian, Spanish and Anglo agriculture.
How did the Indian's extensive planting of corn affect the soil?
How do bean crops affect the soil? How have modern technological advance in farming affected the land?
What effect did sheep grazing by the Spanish have on the land? Economic Conditions
Put on a play about the critical environmental and economic situations which affected Pueblo Indians in past centuries and some which affected Hispanic settlers. These could be situations which could affect current residents also. Compare the buffering strategies used by the Indians, the Spanish and the Anglos.
What would Indians do when the corn crop failed?
How would Hispanic settlers cope with a drought?
How would contemporary Albuquerque cope with either a removal of the Air Force base or a shutdown for the airport?
Frederick Jackson Turner suggested that the frontier way of life played a large role in the development of American national character." Discuss the general characteristics of frontier communities.
How did these characteristics affect Albuquerque?
What examples of "Yankee ingenuity" can be found in our city's development? "Self-reliance?" A democratic lifestyle?
In general, what was the attitude of people of the "frontier" toward this environment? What effect did that attitude have on the environment? To what extent has that attitude been modified in Albuquerque recently?
Set up a display of photographs and maps of buildings and city streets of Old Town and Downtown Albuquerque. If possible, see the Albuquerque Museum's slide presentation of the city's history.
How do these photographs and maps reflect the past and present uses of these two sections of the city?
Why is there a plaza in Old Town? Why is it rectangular?
Are the streets wider in Downtown than in Old Town?
What changes have occurred in Downtown during the past decade or two? Why? What effect have these changes had on the city?
What plans are currently underway to revitalize Downtown? What are their chances for success? What factors might determine how viable Downtown can be? Develop a flowchart to show the effects a thriving Downtown would have on the city economically, socially, and environmentally.
Plot various Albuquerque and neighboring communities, Old Town, South Valley, Corrales, Sandia Pueblo, on a topographic map. Discuss what natural resources may have been important in the founding and growth of each community.
When was each community established?
How close to water for irrigation is each community?
How arable is the soil in each place?
How close is each community to major roads or railroads?
Construct line graphs to show Albuquerque's population by decades from 1860 to the present. Use a computer spreadsheet or a timeline program to help you.
A practical means of determining the rate of growth for a community would be to find the population figures for several consecutive years and separately calculate the difference as a percentage) from year to year. The average of these annual percentages will provide a workable figure to be used in projecting growth.
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Year |
Population |
Population Increase |
Rate of Increase |
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1989 |
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1990 |
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1991 |
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1992 |
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1993 |
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1994 |
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1995 |
Assuming that this average annual rate of population growth will remain the same, project what Albuquerque's population would be in 2000, 2010 and 2020.
How long will it take for Albuquerque's population to double its 1990 size?
Use the equation below.
70/Annual Rate = number of years to double population
What was the rate of growth between 1860 and 1910? Between 1910 and 1940? Between 1940 and 1970? Between 1970 and 1990? What is Albuquerque's current rate of growth? In each of these period, what accounted for the rate of growth?
What would the population of Albuquerque be by the year 2,000 if the current rate doubles? What factors will determine what the rate of immigration will be during the remainder of the century.
What might be some of the positive and negative consequences if the current rate of immigration doubled?
How does Albuquerque's rate of growth compare with the rest of the state? With the nation?
Construct bar graphs showing the relative population of Indians, Hispanics, Blacks, Anglos, and Asians in Albuquerque for the census periods from the time of Statehood (1912) until the present. Use a spreadsheet program.
If there was a significant change in any decade, what events helped to bring about this change?
At these different stages in the city's history, which culture predominated? Should any one culture dominant simply because it has the largest population or because it is the oldest in the area? Discuss.
Is the census accurate in counting people of color?
How do people from the different groups view the same period in history?
How might the city's history and development have been different if another culture had been the dominant one at any stage in its growth? Describe one example.
Select committees for research and report on the importance of, and attitudes toward, water throughout history. Use a CDROM encyclopedia or the World Wide Web if possible.
What part did water play in the selection of Albuquerque as a place to settle?
What problems. like drought, flooding, erosion, were associated with water during each of these periods?
How did the inhabitants cope with drought?
Divide the class in half. Have one group bury items in the school yard. Make sure that some of the items are small (loose beds, safety pins); some are relatively large (a bowl, a glass jar); some items are perishable (nuts, seeds, etc.) and others not. Complete a record of what was buried and where. A week or so later, have the other group excavate the site.
How many items were lost?
Were items lost through careless evacuation or through disintegration?
Did the excavators find out which items had been buried separately and which placed close together?
Discuss with the class the fact that all archeology is destructive. Once a site has been excavated there is nothing left. What burden is put upon the archeologists in terms of recording information?
Discuss how archeology perpetuates cultural kleptomania?
Do you have the right to excavate someone else's items if they asked you not to?
Ask if you can examine waste baskets in the rooms of your houses and school. This is trash, which constitutes most of what archeologists recover from a site. Discuss what can be learned from these findings.
How many people live in the house?
What is each of your rooms used for?
What are the ages and sexes of the people in the house?
What are the occupations and religious preferences of the occupants?
How can architecture (physical description) and the contents of the house help to answer these questions?
Look at the photographs of excavated archeological sites. Discuss what can be learned from them. How could the time the site was occupied be estimated?
How could the number of people living at the site be estimated?
Is it possible to tell how the people made a living? If so, what clues are in the photographs?
On a map of the Albuquerque region, locate Coronado State Monument, Tijeras Pueblo, Ranch De Carnue, Isleta, and Sandia.
What might have influenced selection of each of these locations as a place for settlement?
How do these different locations compare in the desirability as sites for settlements?
What is known about the reasons why some sites were abandoned?
Compare the political structures under which the people in Albuquerque have been governed from the earliest times until the present. Show the different systems in the form of a chart.
What form of government does Albuquerque currently have? How long has it been in effect? Who are the present City Councilors and Mayor? What is the function of the Chief Administrative Officer (C.A.O.)?
What percentage of the population voted in recent elections for Mayor and Councilors?
What is the current status of city-county consolidation? How was the city governed during the Territorial Period? Was it a democracy then?
Did people have more control over their own destinies under earlier forms of government, or now?
If the you could design a "perfect" form of government for the city, how might it be structure? Is there such a thing as a perfect form of government?
Prepare a calendar for the year which includes all the holidays or special days celebrated by the dominant culture (Presidents' Day, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, etc.). Add to the calendar the special days their families and minority cultures in and around Albuquerque celebrate.
What is the origin and significance of many of the special days our dominant culture celebrates (Halloween, Valentine's Day, Arbor Day)?
Do different cultures have similar patterns concerning celebration of spring, of harvest, and of other symbolic occasions?
How are the traditions connected with food, ceremonies, clothing, etc., similar or different in the various holidays which have common foundations, such as harvest festivals?
Which holidays and special days are your favorites? Why? What do you especially enjoy? Can you find ways to share some of your fun and enjoyment of these occasions with your classmates of different backgrounds?
Conduct a Living History study. Prepare questions for taped interviews with older relatives, neighbors, or senior citizens involved in city intergenerational programs. You might include such questions as:
What did you do for recreation when you were our age?
What kind of home did you live in?
What were some of the most exciting experiences you can remember?
Which of today's modern conveniences do you feel added most to the comfort of your lifestyle?
How do you feel about the growth which has occurred in Albuquerque?
Would you rather have lived your youth when you did, or in today's world? Why?
If you could have controlled Albuquerque's growth and expansion, what changes would you have made?
Prepare a Time Capsule to be buried in the school's playground.
What would be the most significant articles to include in the Capsule?
What factors have to be considered in preparing a Time Capsule?
If children in other eras (Pre-Columbian, early Spanish period, Civil War period, beginning of the railroad, earth 20th century) had set up a Time Capsule, what might they have included?
What conclusions do you think someone finding today's Time Capsule 100 years from now might draw about our society? What do you consider the most significant aspects of our present day period?
Set up a miniature Albuquerque State Fair in the classroom or school.
Have booths displaying the crafts, memorabilia, foods, games, and hobbies of the various cultures (ethnic, senior, youth, special interest groups, etc.) which comprise our city.
Such a Fair could be used as a fund raiser for a special school project.
Write a research paper on Native Americans in the Albuquerque area, past and present. If possible, visit Isleta, Coronado Monument, and Petroglyph State Park. Use a CDROM encyclopedia or the World Wide Web, if possible.
Why did the Indians settle where they did?
Throughout history, how have the people of the Isleta Pueblo related to their non-Indian neighbors?
What is known about the Indians who drew the petroglyphs on the West Mesa?
When and why was the Coronado settlement abandoned?
How do the people of the Isleta and Sandia Pueblos earn their living today?
To what extent have the Isletans and Sandia Pueblo people retained their traditions and culture?
(Up to Section III, Back to Eye Opener Activities 4, On to Activities for the Senses and Sensibilities 4)