A Trail Across the Plains

Start a whole new life in a land known as the Wild Wild West! Learners analyze maps, personal accounts, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, songs, and video clips to uncover life under the Homestead Act. Using their new skills, class members role...

Students face a challenge. In this survival lesson, students discover the hardships faced by the pioneers who moved west and see if they would survive a similar situation. They discuss essential items they need to survive and...

Through learning about the Oregon Trail and Nebraska, learners evaluate the elements of historical fiction. Coming with a comprehensive bibliography, this lesson has your class learn about settlers traveling along the Oregon Trail,...

Students access the Oregon Trial website to find information on what it was like to experience traveling the Oregon Trial. Then, in groups, they create dioramas depicting events that could have happened along the Oregon Trail.

Students work with primary documents and latter-day photographs to recapture the experience of traveling on the Oregon Trail. Working in groups, they write a scene for the movie that is historically accurate and based on the kinds of...

Fourth graders investigate the hardships faced by the Utah pioneers. In small groups they calculate a budget using a determined amount of money, select a challenge for the group, and discuss how their group overcomes the challenges...

Students discuss and examine various types of dwellings of Native American Tribes of Utah, and create dioramas showing at least one type of Native American dwelling.

Fourth graders discover the significance of the Oregon Trail in Idaho history. In addition, 4th graders conceptualize the Oregon Trail in relation to their own lives. They engage in a wide variety of curricular activities, culminating in...

Fourth graders explore the Oregon Trail. In this Oregon Trail activity, 4th graders collaborate to conduct Internet research regarding states along the Oregon trail route. Students present their findings to their peers.

Learners become familiar with the sacrifices that the migrants endured crossing the plains to the west. They experience some of the problem solving that the pioneers faced and pay the natural consequences of their choices.