Tuesday, March 17th - Period 8 Lesson 12

• GI Bill of Rights, 1944*

  • Serviceman's Readjustment Act

  • provided a range of benefits to returning WW2 soldiers

  • low-cost mortgages, low interest loans, college tuition, unemployment pay for a year

    • portions still exist today

• Sun Belt

  • Region of the country from South Carolina to California that saw a major shift in population after WW2

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​Post-War Economic Prosperity

​Prosperity of the 1950s

• On pg. 208, analyze the graphs regarding the economic prosperity in the United States following WW2.

• Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

  • Abolished the national origins formula from the 1920s

  • Aimed against Eastern Europeans and Asians

  • Led to immigration increases into the U.S. after its passage

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​Immigration

• Silent Spring

  • Environmental science book written in 1962

  • Discussed the harm of pesticide use on the environment

  • Led to an environmental movement leading to the creation of the EPA

• Earth Day

  • An annual event begun in 1970 to demonstrate support for environmental protection

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The Environmental Movement

• Environmental Protection Agency

  • Independent agency of the federal government created in 1970

  • maintains and enforces federal environmental laws

  • enforcement with fines and sanctions

• Clean Air Act

  • Federal air quality law to reduce and control air pollution

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The Environmental Movement

• Three Mile Island

  • partial nuclear meltdown

  • released radioactive gases into the atmosphere

  • worst accident in U.S. nuclear power plant history

  • Statistical increase in cancers around the area according to some studies but not others

  • Level 5 accident on a scale of 7

  • Chernobyl Level 7 (1986)

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The Environmental Movement

Laws which the EPA enforces -

• On the next slide you are given a link to the EPA's website.

• Click it and research the laws that the EPA enforces in the United States today.

• After, you will pick 3 laws that stick out most to you.

• You will identify and describe each of the 3 laws with open-ended questions in this lesson.