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8th grade · Social Studies · Unit 5 of 15

Expansion & Empire

The Plains, the Pacific and the Spanish-American War

What your child practices

Conflict with Plains nations and federal Indian policy, Pacific trade and Hawaii, the Spanish-American War and the territories it brought, the Panama Canal, and the Roosevelt Corollary in Latin America.

New York State Learning Standards learning standard: 8.3; 8.3a; 8.3b; 8.3c; 8.3d · westward expansion and conflict with Native Americans, and the rise of the United States as an imperial power

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. The US expanded across the Plains, bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 and reached into the Pacific.
  2. After the Spanish-American War (1898), the US gained Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.
  3. The Roosevelt Corollary (1904) said the US could act as a police power in Latin America.

Example: Which lands did the US gain after the Spanish-American War? The war with Spain was in 1898. Spain gave up some of its colonies. The US gained islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Answer: Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines

Expansion & Empire in New York

In the New York State Learning Standards, this is unit 5 of 15 in 8th grade Social Studies, after Workers & Progressives and before World War I.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: New York State Education Department (NYSED)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Many people in Latin America resented the United States because…

    • it never traded with them
    • it built no canals
    • it often interfered in their countries' affairs
    • it had no navy

  2. Question 2

    The transcontinental railroad, completed in 1869, linked…

    • Albany and Buffalo
    • New York and London
    • the East and the West of the United States
    • Florida and Cuba

  3. Question 3

    As settlers, miners and railroads moved onto the Great Plains after the Civil War, many Plains nations were…

    • left alone
    • made rulers of the territories
    • given more land
    • forced onto reservations

  4. Question 4

    The Panama Canal, opened in 1914, connected…

    • Lake Erie and the Hudson River
    • the Arctic and Indian oceans
    • the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
    • the Mississippi and the Ohio

  5. Question 5

    Government boarding schools for Native children in this era tried to…

    • replace children's languages and cultures with white American ways
    • let children stay with families
    • train them as diplomats
    • teach in Native languages

  6. Question 6

    Cuba became independent after the war but…

    • had to accept strong US influence under the Platt Amendment
    • returned to Spain
    • became a US state
    • joined Mexico

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