Describe three signature California industries -- film, aerospace, and technology -- and explain why each took root in California.
Across the twentieth century, California became home to industry after industry that reshaped how people around the world lived. Early filmmakers moved to Southern California in the 1910s largely for its dependable sunshine and its variety of nearby scenery -- ocean, mountains, and desert all within a short drive -- and studios including Universal, Warner Bros., and Paramount built Hollywood into the center of American filmmaking. Decades later, aerospace companies like Douglas, Lockheed, and North American Aviation built aircraft in Southern California, an industry that boomed enormously during World War II and continued into the space age, alongside institutions like the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
Starting in the mid-1900s, the Santa Clara Valley south of San Francisco became known as Silicon Valley, named for the silicon used in computer chips. Stanford University helped launch many early technology companies, including Hewlett-Packard, famously founded in a Palo Alto garage in 1939, and the region grew into the world's best-known center for computing and internet technology later in the century. Three very different industries, one repeating pattern: California kept becoming the place where the next big idea took root.
Mastery looks like: They can name and briefly describe all three industries and explain at least one reason each took root in California.
Common stumbles: Mixing up which industry belongs with which region or era; forgetting that these industries built on each other across the century.