Social Studies Unit 5: Westward Expansion

This unit focuses mainly on the Western Frontier, the journey out West, and the challenges/dangers faced by the pioneers. In my classroom, it's usually one of the shorter units (time is always an issue, as all teachers know).

This unit, like the majority of my Social Studies units, is highlighted by the end of unit project. This particular project has students working in small groups to make a presentation poster about a major topic, and then working on an individual portion where students participate in a Pioneer Simulation (a Scholastic Resource book).

The student information document, which includes all information, requirements, and scoring for this project can be downloaded in either Word format or pdf format.

Also, if you're just looking for a place for your students to come to and find sites and facts, I have taken this same page and removed all the teacher resources from it. My own students will use this as well. You can go to that page, Social Studies Unit 5: Westward Expansion Student Links Only.

With that information out of the way, I'm going to present some resources that can be used in the classroom, but first, some student ready links to research the topic of their choice. I didn't include any links to videos, those are provided at the bottom of this page. The choices given in the requirements document are (with helpful links listed after each, THE LINKS IN ALL CAPS ARE TEACHER RESOURCES):

Teacher Resources:
  • Historical Map and Crossword Puzzle: A short pdf document provided by Scholastic.
  • Trail Maps: A 2 page pdf document with a highly detailed map of many of the trails mentioned above, and a second, high detail map of the Oregon Trail.

Videos:

I'm not going to get too crazy with videos. Simply put, these are the two I show in my classroom every year:
  • The American Experience: The Donner Party: This eerie documentary was shown on PBS awhile back, and is still prominently displayed on their website. This is the story of the Donner Party, the infamous group that was stranded in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for a nightmarish winter. This link will take you to part one of the documentary on Youtube, you can just go through all 9 parts there. The whole thing is 90 minutes long.
  • America: The Story of Us, Westward Episodes: The first of two 10 minute portions from the America: The Story of Us documentaries, some of the most high quality films ever made about the time period.

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