Learning with Lewis & Clark: teachers share exciting ideas for building interactive, cross-curricular activities around the bicentennial of the famous 1803 expedition.

At first glance, astronauts driving land rovers across the remote soil of Mars might seem light-years away from the 1803-1806 Lewis and Clark expedition, but Donald Scott, the NASA aerospace education specialist for Montana, doesn't think so. Scott, like many educators across the United States, is preparing for the Bicentennial Commemoration (2003-2006) of the Lewis and Clark expedition. He is involved in putting together lesson plans for From Montana to Mars, a curriculum unit which offers many ways for students and teachers to compare 19th- and 21st-century exploration.

"It is amazing," says Scott, "how the Lewis and Clark expedition can serve as a road map for the participants in future human exploration of Mars. The Corps of Discovery used boats and we use spaceships, but in many ways the challenges are similar." For the exploration of the Louisiana Territory, the Corps had to address many of the same problems that future space missions will face. "In preparing to journey into lands unknown," adds Scott, "Lewis and Clark had to learn how to expect the unexpected. How did they decide what to take, since they didn't really know where they were going, how long it would take? How did they decide what kind of person could withstand the uncertainty?"

Scott has students look at how Lewis and Clark decided what supplies to rake, how to pack, how crews were chosen, what qualities were needed to be a member of the Corps of Discovery, what traits contributed to successful teamwork, what skills were needed for survival, and how much physical training and mental preparation were needed for the journey. He also asks students to consider the strategies that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark relied on to unite the group and to discipline those who disobeyed the rules. Scott points out that both the Lewis and Clark expedition and the NASA space missions have had important scientific questions to answer, both using the best technology available to them at the time. Students can consider how the expedition members reacted when they encountered Native American peoples whose customs and traditions were quite different from their own. What can be learned from this about how we view other cultures today, especially those we may find threatening or hostile at first view?

Points of View Along the Trail

While Donald Scott looks toward Mars, Dr. Patricia Cooney Nida, at the Northwest Regional Education Laboratory (NWREL) in Portland, Oregon, sees other lessons inherent in the Lewis and Clark story.

"It's a story that puts kids at the core of American history," she says. "If your goal is to make children feel like their thinking really matters, there's plenty to chew on in this story--they can quarrel, conjecture, and question." Nida points our that while the expedition is an action-adventure story, it is also a story that raises issues of prejudice, discrimination, and fairness.

"This is a terrific opportunity," says Nida, "to show kids that a historical event can be viewed from many different perspectives. This event must be seen from the Native American perspective, too." Nida suggests that teachers begin with Sacagawea, the only female in the party (see sidebar, page 21). Students can focus on how Sacagawea is treated on the trip. She is, in fact, mistreated by her husband and not paid for her services, but she is treated respectfully by the Corps and does have a vote when the expedition decides where to camp or in which direction to go. Nida encourages students to write about how Sacagawea might have felt when she learned of her brother's existence, and when she said goodbye to him.

"It is important," says Nida, "that students understand that the lives of Native American peoples encountered along the trail did not begin when they met Lewis and Clark." Nida urges teachers to have students look closely at three major Native American cultural groups whose lives were touched by the expedition: the Plains Indians, the Indians of the Intermountain/Plateau/Great Basin area, and the Pacific Northwest Indians. They differed in their languages, customs, and beliefs, and in their attitudes toward the expedition.

Like Sacagawea, Clark's African-American slave, named York, was also a member of the expedition. He had a vote in day-to-day decisions, but he did not get paid and wasn't granted his freedom, In some ways, he was treated as an equal. When the trip ended, however, the other Corps members ceased treating him as an equal and failed to recognize his contribution to their success.

The experiences of Sacagawea and York can be springboards for many different critical-thinking activities, from debates and the writing of editorials and persuasive speeches to research and reporting on when and how African-Americans, women, and Native Americans gained the right to vote. "Kids are always surprised to learn," says Nida, "that Native American suffrage did not occur until the 1920s." Nida stresses the importance of pointing out the biases certain journal passages reflect in the use of such demeaning words as squaw (an Algonquian Indian word meaning prostitute), savage, and primitive.

Cross-Curricular Connections

The Lewis and Clark story is one that can be taught all across the curriculum, with a variety of opportunities for integrated learning activities. From third grade up, students can follow Lewis and Clark's model of meticulous scientific observation and create their own illustrated journals.

Says Nida, "They can not only draw the birds, animals, and insects they see on the playground, but also make notes on what the weather was like, how they felt on that day, and how students were getting along."

For other outdoor activities, kids can also research and grow a Lewis and Clark garden consisting of the plants mentioned in the journal or plants native to their own area, learn how to dry and preserve plant specimens, or identify animal footprints and make prints of animal tracks.

For Dartha Hopkins, a fifth-grade teacher at Lacy Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Lewis and Clark expedition "is a story that has every element of drama in it. There is friendship, teamwork, escape from wild animals, unexpected meetings, uniting of a brother and sister, survival, and mountain climbing, to name just a few." She reads to her students from the journal entries and then has them re-enact significant events. The children create an itinerary for a present-day trip along the trail and write survival stories for an adventure magazine based on their reading.

Sixth-grade social-studies teacher Chris Clinton, at Kemp's Landing Magnet School in Virginia Beach, Virginia, works closely with his team's science teacher as they research the bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, grizzly bear, bison, prairie dog, and the other animals mentioned in the journals. After his students have identified each animal's eating habits, and its habitat and range in North America, they shade in the areas where these animals would have been found on their own maps of the expedition's route.

Both geography and science are involved when Clinton's students study how the compass, sextant, and chronometer helped the expedition determine its position. Students have opportunities for atlas and map work, as they find the latitude and longitude of each location they read about in the journal and enter this information on their individual maps. They use their math skills as they calculate distances covered and speed of travel.

A favorite writing activity in Clinton's class has to do with Seaman, Lewis's Newfoundland dog. Students read Gail Karwoski's Seaman: The Dog Who Explored the West With Lewis and Clark (Turtleback Books, 1999), which tells the story of the expedition from the dog's point of view. Based on the journals of Lewis and Clark and other members of the Corps, the book describes how Seaman catches and retrieves game, gets bitten by a beaver, and chases a buffalo out of the camp. Students write essays about Seaman's adventures or explain a key event from the dog's point of view.

Clinton's classes end their unit with a trip to Monticello, Jefferson's home in Charlottesville, Virginia. There the students see firsthand the artifacts the expedition brought back. It is a fitting place to end their unit, because the National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Council has chosen Monticello as the starting point for the nationwide observance on January 18, 2003. Make sure your students are ready for take-off!

RELATED ARTICLE: BOOKS FOR TEACHERS

* Undaunted Courage, by Stephen E. Ambrose (Simon & Schuster, 1996).

* The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1986-1997).

BOOKS FOR STUDENTS

* Lewis and Clark and Me: A Dog's Tale, by Laurie Meyers (Henry Halt, 2002).

* Journeys in Time, by Elspeth Leacock and Susan Buckley (Houghton Mifflin, 2001).

* Lewis and Clark for Kids: Their Journey of Discovery With 21 Activities, by Janis Herbert (Chicago Review Press, 2000).

* Lewis and Clark's Journey of Discovery in American History, by Judith Edwards (Enslow, 1999).

* http://nd/lewisandclark.com Developed by the North Dakota Tourism Department, "Lewis & Clark in North Dakota" offers information on the expedition as well as profiles of Mandan and Hidatsa leaders that the expedition encountered.

* www.nps.gov/focl This site offers two traveling trunks with powder horns, buckskin clothing, and other artifacts and activity ideas--one for the Lewis and Clark Expedition's winter at Fort Clatsop, grades 3-5 or 6-8, and one on the Clatsop and Chinook Indians for grades 3-8. They can be borrowed by teachers anywhere in the United States.

* www.lewisandclarktrail.com Developed by Montana Magazine, this site includes a detailed map listing every historical site along the trial in ten states from Missouri to Washington, as well as an extensive calendar of bicentennial events and powwows planned for 2003-2006.

* www.lewisandclark.org Developed by the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, this site offers an excellent short summary of the history of the expedition, an interesting article on Sacagawea, and information on its curriculum An American Legacy: The Lewis and Clark Expedition, for grades 5-9.

* www.lewisandclark200.com The official site of the National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial gives the location of the 14 communities--from Charlottesville, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon-chosen as official bicentennial commemoration sites, and describes events to be held at each.

* www.monticello.org/jefferson/lewisandclark "Jefferson's West: A Lewis and Clark Exposition" includes information on Monticello's part in the bicentennial, including the January 18, 2003 kickoff.

* www.nps.gov/lecl/corps2.htm Beginning in 2002, the National Park Service will have a traveling museum featuring past and present peoples and cultures along the Lewis and Clark route.

* www.pbs.org/lewisandclark This site is the companion to the PBS series "Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery." It contains concise descriptions of many Native American tribes.

* www.lcarchieve.org "Lewis and Clark on the Information Superhighway" has links to more than 500 Web sites.

* www.nps.gov/lecl This is the official site of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail.

What Is Her Name?

Is it Sacagawea, Sacajawea, or Sakakawea? Debate goes on about how to spell the name of the Native American guide who played such a key part in the expedition. Uncertainty about whether it was her Shoshone childhood name or a Hidatsa name given to her by her captors led to confusion. If it was Shoshone, Sacagawea and Sacajawea are closer to the way it would have been pronounced. If Hidatsa, Sakakawea. Today many experts favor the Sacagawea spelling which is pronounced Sah-CAH-gah-we-ah.

Linda Scher is a curriculum developer and writer who lives in Raleigh, NC. She is the author of several social studies textbooks.