Geographical Knowledge of
the continent
3. Closure
Collect journal entry students wrote at the beginning of class.
Have students finish chart in section 2 for homework that night. If they
already finished the chart, those students should look up an answer for
the following question: What are the origins of maps before Lewis and
Clarks expedition? Who made them? How did they get the information
about the area?
4. Anticipatory Set/ Introduction (Day 2)
Ask students what the origins of maps before Lewis and Clarks expedition
could have been from? Who made them? How did they get the
information about the areas?
Talk about the answer as a class. See if students found different answers
than one another.
5. Lesson Input/ Guided Practice
Have students look at the pre-journey map of the West in the Map Section
of the website (Soulard Map of the Missouri and Upper Mississippi, 1802
by William Clark). Have students also look at the Map of Lewis and Clark
Track for what they discovered.
Have students answer questions about maps (Section 3):
o What are the main differences between the old maps and a current
map of the United States?
o What parts of todays United States were the least known in the
beginning of the 19th century?
o How do you think the Americans in the eastern U.S. got their
information about the West before Lewis and Clarks journey?
Have students look at The Route of the Corps of Discovery to find out
where the journey actually went. With a printout of a U.S. map, have
students trace Lewis and Clarks journey on to the map.
Have students answer questions comparing maps (Section 4):
o What rivers did the party go down?
Influen
ce:
SI or
MI
3+ Characteristics
suggesting that the
source is a quality
resource, reliable
Accessibili
ty
Access for
teachers
Overall Rating
and
Suggestions
for current,
material
Video link
Activity sheets
Online resources
or others
Easily
Accessible
future use of
resource
Would use this
again
http://www.pbs.o
rg/lewisandclark/
class/l01.html
(SI)
http://www.pbs.org/
lewisandclark/
(SI)
http://www.pbs.org/
lewisandclark/archi
ve/idx_map.html
(MI)
Easily
Accessible
http://www.pbs.org/
lewisandclark/insid
e/idx_cir.html
(MI)
Easily
Accessible
A tad length.
May use again
B
Harcourt Social
Studies States and
Regions (Chapter
12 Exploring the
West)
(MI)
Basic definitions
Very short passages
that are vague
about information it
contains
Easily
Accessible
textbook
for the
class
A
So many
different
characteristics
to this website.
Would use this
again to teach
anything
related to
Lewis and
Clark
A+
Good resource.
May use again
B
Paper
Colored Pencils
I. Reflection on Planning
I thought planning this lesson was a little stressful. I was not used to this
format; it was a lot more in depth than I have been used to, but I liked it in a
way. It made me think about all the aspects of the lesson more thoroughly
and make sure that everything was in order with the lesson. Ive never really
planned multi-day lessons before, so it was interesting to be able to do one. I
had difficulty coming up with the independent practices for some reason. I
pushed through and came up with an activity I thought would work well with
the rest of the lesson. It is mainly based on the ability to access the internet,
so if there were by chance no internet access, I would have to make a huge
change to the plans of this lesson. With all things hopeful, the internet will
work and the students will be able to access and use the websites to learn
more about Lewis and Clarks journey. I am sure that there are some
revisions I could make to the lesson if I ever come back and use it in the
future, but for now, I am very happy with how it turned out.