Sara Margaret Williams Picture Your Plate Visual Geography Project November 25, 2012 Block 8B

Thanksgiving Plate Description Starting at the top middle and going clockwise, there are mashed potatoes, a deviled egg, a roll, squash casserole, orange-pineapple pudding, strawberries, and ham on my plate. Thanksgiving Holiday Questions 1. Geography shapes the story because the Pilgrims were coming from Europe to Plymouth (Massachusetts) for religious freedom. Because the land was geographically different, and the Pilgrims didnt know how to farm it, they had to get help from the Native Americans. One of the reasons we celebrate Thanksgiving is to celebrate the cooperation between the Pilgrims and Native Americans. 2. Today, Americans tend to perceive the Thanksgiving holiday as a day to eat too much food and spend time with their families. In the South, people tend to consider Thanksgiving as a religious holiday by giving thanks to God, while people in the North dont necessarily consider Thanksgiving religious. 3. Baked beans, strawberries, fried okra, corn on the cob, turkey, and ham are truly American Thanksgiving foods because they can or were able to be grown or hunted on American soil. For example, okra can be grown in South Carolina, and then it is breaded and fried. 4. Strawberries: a. A package of strawberries cost $3.50. b. It takes about 5 minutes to cut the leaves off of the strawberries. c. Strawberries grow best between June and August. d. These strawberries were grown in Southern California. e. Southern California is about 2,500 miles away from Chapin, South Carolina. Gas was $3.43 as of November 26, 2012. If an 18 wheeler holds 250 gallons of gas (at 10

Sara Margaret Williams Picture Your Plate Visual Geography Project November 25, 2012 Block 8B mpg), it will take about one full tank of gas to get from Southern California to South Carolina. This means that it costs about $857.50 to get the strawberries to South Carolina by an 18 wheeler. 5. Thankfulness to my family means thanking and praising God for aoull that he has provided us with. This reflects on my familys religion because we are Christians, and thanking God for what He has given us is a part of our faith. Geography helps to shape this because we live in the South, where people are statistically more likely to be Christians. Because of this, we are more likely to view Thanksgiving as a religious holiday. 6. Because all this food needs to be shipped to different places around the United States, there is more air pollution. There are also many people who travel to visit their families in different parts of the United States. This also adds to the air pollution from cars, planes and trains.