Lesson Plan

Cityhood

 

Lesson Preparation

 

Teacher Reading

You'll definitely want to use Sunshine, Citrus and Science by Keld Reynolds. Dr. Reynolds records the process by which Loma Linda incorporated at great length. You may want to develop some sort of chart to outline the process of becoming a city.

Bibliography

 

Resources

 

Online

Audio-Visual

  •  Check the Heritage Room Database Film and Video Library for any footage of historic events. I'd like to see a listing of all offerings, but if you know of something that has happened in Loma Linda, you can do a search. http://151.112.2.51/heritage/

Textbook

  • If someone has written a history of Loma Linda for children, please let me know!

 

Outline

 

1. Habitat: The City of Loma Linda, incorporated in 1970, began to take stock in its available land. Early city maps show the South Hills as being protected as a nature reserve. The City faces the issue of how to best protect wildland even today.

2. Food: Loma Linda is served by three supermarkets, many small restaurants, fruit stands and fast-food outlets. Alcohol sales are heavily restricted in the City. Will this continue, or will new stores and restaurants be able to sell alcohol? A topic for discussion: Is Loma Linda a safer or better place to live because alcohol is limited?

3. Housing: The orange groves of the past have been gradually gobbled up for housing. Open land available for housing is very limited now, and developers are eager to begin grading the South Hills for more development. How many new homes can still be built? Then what? These are questions the City must answer in the near future.

4. Social Structure: Issues of government are handled through the City Council, elected by the voters in Loma Linda. More and more conflicts and issues are developing with the County, State and Federal Government over water, land, flood control, development, trash, waste treatment and air quality. Many of these issues have only arisen as resources become more limited and the demand increases.

Life in Loma Linda is still heavily-dominated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, but less so than in the past. Large numbers of immigrants have settled here from Asia, Africa, Mexico, Central and South America and the Middle East. If they are Adventists, they may set up their own ethnic churches, and associate closely with others who speak their own language or share their culture. This multi-ethnic community is a clear contrast with early Loma Linda, which was primarily White.

5. Art and Tools: The community of Loma Linda, while still practical and utilitarian, seems to be developing greater interest in art and esthetics. The City enforces codes that require yards to be landscaped and maintained neatly. Art is slowly finding its way into the lobbies at the Medical Center.

The Campus Hill Church and the City Hall have public address units which can project organ music to announce the hours and the approach of sundown on Friday and Saturday, the beginning and end of the Sabbath.

The University continues to expand its technology, with world-famous advances in organ transplants and cancer treatment. The Proton Accelerator program has drawn worldwide attention. The University has made itself almost self-contained in one respect, with its Power Plant which supplies electricity and hot and cold water for all parts of the institution.

The City Fire Department owns and uses highly-sophisticated fire and rescue equipment, mostly donated by the two hospitals in town who need such equipment in the event of a fire or other disaster.

6. Footprints: Some of the biggest issues of the future will be the water supply. Trichlorethylene (considered by the government to have been poured onto the ground at a rocket plant in Mentone many years ago) has entered the water supply. Cities have rushed to find other sources and to look for ways to treat the polluted water. No one is sure how much TCE is safe or dangerous, but the danger of getting cancer by drinking polluted water will certainly trouble City officials for many years to come.

Projects and Activities

1. Visit City Hall. Make an appointment for a field trip where you meet the Mayor or other City Council Members, Animal Control Officer, representatives from the Fire Department, and tour the building. The City Clerk will lead students in a pretend "City Council" session, where students can enact laws.

2. Ask for a tour of the water system, like wells and storage reservoirs. Talk about how much water the city uses daily, about pollution, and about the future.

3. Students can use maps of Loma Linda (get them from the Clerk, City Hall) to project what Loma Linda's population will be in 2025, 2050, and so on. Predict which buildings will be replaced and what the community will look like in 25 or 50 years.

 

Worksheet - Future

 

The worksheets may be used as either a lesson guide and written in as you go along, or as a test. Feel free to make up your own to fit your approach to the curriculum

 

Adventures

 

1. Definitely schedule a trip to City Hall

2. Arrange a trip to the Heritage Room at the Del E. Webb Library, Loma Linda University

3. Set up a tour at the Loma Linda University Medical Center