Geographic Literacy Elementary Lesson: By Beverly Grotts

The Tournament of Roses Parade Route in Pasadena - Then and Now

Using Transportation to Teach City Development Planes, Trains, Automobiles, and What Else???

An Introduction to Media Literacy:
Analyzing Images Through a Historical Lens

Beverly Grotts
Jefferson Elementary School

GRADE 3

INTRODUCTION
Each year in January about 1,000,000 people come to Pasadena, California, to view the Tournament of Roses Parade, including many students. Los Angeles has approximately 695,000 public school-aged students. Pasadena Unified School District has approximately 20,000 public school-aged students, including those at Jefferson Elementary School, which is approximately a half-mile from Hill Avenue and Colorado Boulevard, one point along the parade route. The main objective of the lesson is for third graders to learn the history of the Rose Parade, the changes that have occurred along its route, and its impact on the city of Pasadena, in particular its physical growth.

CALIFORNIA HISTORY-SOCIAL SCIENCE STANDARDS
3.3 Students draw from historical and community resources to
organize the sequence of local historical events and describe how
each period of settlement left its mark on the land.
3.3.3. Trace why their community was established, how individuals and
families contributed to its founding and development, and how the
community has changed over time, drawing on maps,
photographs, oral histories, letters, newspapers, and other
primary sources.

Did you know?

Eighty-three percent of the Los Angeles River is a cement-lined channel because the Army Corps of Engineers was trying to prevent the disastrous flooding that had occurred repeatedly. There is an uncemented, plant- of the bed beside the I-5 near the 134 Freeway because the water table there filled section is too close to the surface to pave over.