Ponca City Middle School Had Mock Land Run

West Middle School seventh grade students participated in a mock land run this week.

Students have been studying Oklahoma in English, so the teachers decided it would be a good experience for the students to do a land run.

West teacher, Joy Botts said they included many components of the Land Run.

“We set up the field with ‘plots’ of land, and separated them out randomly,” Botts said. “We also included ‘towns.’ The towns had a population limit to them, so only the amount of people that would fit in the town was allowed to claim them. We also had amenities on some of the plots to make them more desirable – water, oil, streams, trees, and food (candy and hot Cheetos). We did not allow the students to have more than one settler to a claim. Not all settlers received a piece of land or a piece of land with an amenity. Some of the teachers in the building came out to be ‘Sooners’ for us and claimed some of the land for themselves before the students could get to it. Before we started the land run, we asked the students questions about the unit, and when we were finished, we did trivia questions and sang the Oklahoma state song. The students worked very hard on the unit and learned a great deal about the dust bowl, immigration to our state, the Trail of Tears, and the land run.”