Section V: Cultural Fallout: Expressions of Ourselves

PREVIEWING ACTIVITIES:

This section presents information about:
-How communities and business depend on the Interstates
-How an automobile-centered lifestyle developed
-City Scapes created by the Interstates, e.g., Dallas, Houston
-The growth of mega malls
-The appearance of 'edge cities' on America's landscape
-How the Interstates standardized American culture, e.g., motel and restaurant franchises
-The limits of highway expansion: oil dependency and environmental concerns
-Adjusting our vision: highway freedom in a shrinking world

Discussion Questions:
-How did the Interstates change the way goods are delivered?
-What changes did the Interstates bring to America's urban landscape?
-How did the automobile and resulting highways alter how Americans live, work, and play?
-In what ways have mega malls and edge cities destroyed the social interaction of urban life?
-Why do Americans seem to prefer the standardized marketplace the Interstates have created?
-Has our freeway culture made us forever dependent on a sustainable oil supply?
-Can the earth sustain a global freeway culture?

Suggested Activities:
Assign reading in history text beginning with the 1970s and the end of the post-war economic boom. Discuss how the events on the timeline relate to the end of the highway boom. Why did the boom end?

Students should note in their journals how the building of the Interstates transformed the way Americans live. Suggest that students list the facts from this section that illustrate the positive and negative consequences of the Interstate highway boom. What factors transformed America into a highway culture?

Using a map of the United States, locate major cities situated on rivers and alert students to the location of cities mentioned in this section of the film. Are these cities creatures of the Interstates?

Introduce the terms "mega mall" and "edge city". Ask students if they can define these terms. Why did malls and edge cities develop? Where can they be found? Discuss how much time they like to spend in malls. Are malls and
edge cities the new communities of America?

Introduce information on the energy crisis of the early 1 970s. Ask students to note how the gas shortage made Americans aware of our dependence on foreign oil. Discuss how maintaining our oil supply became a foreign policy priority through the early 90s. Is it still a priority?

POSTVIEWING ACTIVITIES:
Conduct a class survey to determine the number of students who have moved or vacationed by car. Locate destinations on a map. Students can discuss times, routes, and sights along the way. Did they travel the Interstates? Which routes? Could they travel without using the Interstates? How would their trip differ?

Ask students if they agree with __________Jackson that America's monument to human achievement is "shopping centers". What does this say about our culture? Have students list what malls they visit, why they go, how they travel to the mall, and how far the mall is from their home. Focus on what the malls offer in terms of standardized service and predictable products, e.g, fast-food chains, name-brand outlets.

Conclude viewing this section was a debate on how the Interstates changed American life(pros and cons). You can focus on one aspect, e.g., the franchised services that line the Interstates from coast to coast and how this standardization has blurred regional differences. Or debate how the Interstates extended the arm of the federal government, e.g., federal vs state jurisdiction.

Distribute copy of world wide highway graph and current car ownership statistics. Have students create a second graph similar to the highway graph. Write an essay explaining what the graph reveals about the relationship between highways and number of automobiles. Speculate on what might happen when developing countries like China and India increase car ownership.

Copy the OPEC cartoon and discuss how the oil crisis affected the price of gasoline. What were the larger economic and political ramifications of the 70s oil crisis? Do students agree with Ron Edsforth that the principle reason we continue to have a large military even after the collapse of communism is "to protect our oil supply"?

ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES:
Divide the class into research teams to determine from where their clothing and food originated and how they think these items reached their community. Have students ask individual grocers, clothing store owners, WalMart/K Mart managers, or service sectors employees, e.g., McDonalds, about the source of their supply shipments. Share findings with the class to discuss to what degree
the Interstates affect commerce in their community. Do students know what trucking services are available? Individual students might research truck design and compare over the decades. Why are trucks so much larger now?

Create travel teams and have each team plot an itinerary to a particular point of interest on or near an Interstate. Begin with a highway map and note the information provided: close-up map of cities, historical notes, the index legend, letter/number grid. Reproduce a map from AAA, Small Blue Planet CD-Rom, a Road Atlas. The itinerary should include a map indicating distances, tolls, stopovers, destinations, and a profile of the people visited in each location. Students can search the Internet for a list of services provided on the Interstates, e.g., Interlinks

The Interstate Highway System is a true expression of America. Have groups research more about the IS as a cultural force. Consider how new avenues have been opened to retired citizens who drive recreation vehicles across America, or how the IS foster a vast tourism industry and change the character and location of jobs and services, or how the IS are often avenues of crime. Have groups share their findings in a class discussion. Conclude with an essay asking students to use the information presented as they discuss _____Miller's closing remark that the Interstates are "tied to both how we want to live on the land, how we want to move across the land... they really are very much emblems of our desire."

Recent world summits on the environment have focused on the need to regulate growth and provide for wise resource management. Students can address this issue in a model United Nations or world summit simulation as representatives of developing and developed countries, e.g., China, India, Russia, Mexico, the USA, Germany, Japan. In order to write a resolution that addresses the need for wise and fair environmental regulations, have students research facts on global warming, fuel consumption, car ownership, existing infrastructure. Internet web sites, the United Nations Development Program, the World Almanac can provide information. What would a nation like China, with 1.3 billion people, propose as a balanced growth plan?