Oregon Trail Diary

Students read about the history of cattle trails and complete language arts, math, social studies, and more activities about barbed wire. For this barbed wire lesson plan, students read poetry, research changes over time, draw cattle...

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.

Seventh graders complete a unit of lessons on the Westward expansion of the U.S. They play the computer game, Oregon Trail III, read primary source documents, conduct Internet research, write diary entries from the pioneer viewpoint, and...

Interactive map highlights the emigrations of men and women over the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails in the 1840s and 50s. Also features a timeline of migration, diary entries from individual migrants, and a flow map showing how...

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...

A glimpse at life on the Oregon Trail during 19th-century westward expansion. Written humorously with teen learners in mind, students can view original photographs and read excerpts from pioneer diaries for a sense of the arduous journey.

A 2,000-mile trek across a continent-with no idea what awaits you on the other side. Tell your students to put on their traveling shoes and prepare for the journey of their lives! In this lesson, students compare imagined travel...

A National Park Service site that gives a brief description of Three Island Crossing (Snake River) and what sometimes occurred when the wagon trains heading westward tried to cross.

Learners use maps and diagrams to examine the Oregon Trail. In groups, they create their own poster of the trail showing the different types of artifacts found along the way. To end the instructional activity, they identify the sources...

Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail is approximately 4,900 miles long, extending from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Columbia River, near present day Astoria, Oregon. It connects 16 states. Today, visitors can follow...