Educators Information

Educators Information / Settling the Red River Valley / Lord Selkirk

Standards Integration:
Minnesota:
Grades 4-5: Mathematical Concepts and Applications: Number Sense
2. A student shall use number concepts and a variety of math operations to represent information and solve problems.
Grades 6-8: Write and Speak: Interpersonal Communication
4. Expressing tone, mood, and vocabulary appropriate for a given situation.
Mathematical Concepts and Applications: Number Sense
2. Solve a variety of problems by representing numbers efficiently, selecting appropriate operations, selecting appropriate methods to estimate or compute, and generating and describing more than one method to solve problems.
Social Studies: History and Citizenship
2. Illustrating a theme of change or migration that encompasses historical events.

North Dakota:
Grades K-4: Social Studies: Economic Systems
4.3.3 Understand the role of currency in everyday life.
Mathematics: Number and Operation
4.1.3 Understand how arithmetic operations are related to one another in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Grades 5-8: Social Studies: Economic Systems
8.3.2 Understand the structure of the United States economic system.
Mathematics: Number and Operation
8.1.2 Apply number theory concepts in mathematical problems.

	Through conducting an interview, students will demonstrate good communication skills.
	Students will demonstrate knowledge of multiplication, division, and fractions through producing a sum equivalent to today’s property rates.

Background:
Thomas Douglas, an Irishman who was the fifth Earl of Selkirk, was the first European to propose a permanent settlement in the Red River Valley. He began to consider this plan around 1802. The property he selected, once part of Rupert’s Land, was “sold” to Lord Selkirk for the sum of 10 schillings because he was a major shareholder in the Hudson’s Bay Company. He imported a group of poor farmers from Scotland and Ireland to this area (just south of present-day Winnipeg) in 1811. He created interest in the area with a prospectus that declared cheap land for those willing to settle it. He exploited the settlers by selling the land to them for 10 schillings an acre.

Pre-Visit Activity:
Invite a local real estate agent into the classroom to discuss how much land in the Red River Valley is worth (per acre) today. Have the students interview the realtor about how a dollar amount is determined on property. Ask why some land is more valuable than other land (for example, why land in the flood plane is less worth than land which is not in the flood plane).

Post-Visit Activity:
Ask the students whether or not Lord Selkirk benefited financially when he purchased and then sold land in the Red River Valley. Using current inflation rates, have the students determine how much Lord Selkirk would pay today for the amount of property he acquired for 10 shillings. Did he pay too little or too much for the land? Use websites to find current inflation rates: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/bu2/inflate.html to calculate the rates yourself; or http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi, to have the rate calculated for you.