Teaching American History – Lesson Plan Template



Westward Expansion- Louisiana Purchase

Social Studies Lesson Plan Template

1. Title: Lessons Learned from the Louisiana Purchase and the Westward Expansion

2. Overview - Big Ideas:

Enduring Understandings – Students learn that change brings choices that affect their lives.

Students will know that the US of today is built upon the early contributions of pioneers.

Students will know that people were affected both positively and negatively by westward expansion.

Students will know that people are willing to suffer if they feel the gain is worth the hardship.

Students will know that science, technology, and transportation are crucial influences in affecting change.

Essential Questions – Did the Western Expansion positively affect the United States?

How did the Louisiana Purchase change the shape of the United States?

What was the Louisiana Purchase?

How did the Louisiana Purchase change lives in the 1800’s?

Did the Louisiana Purchase make changes that still affect life today?

Did the explorers have to figure out what supplies they should take with them?

Did the need to have food for two years or writing paper for two years affect choices the explorers made?

3. Lesson Objectives and Key Vocabulary:

Standards -

SS.5.A.6.1 Describe the causes and effects of the Louisiana Purchase

SS.5.A.6.2 Identify roles and contributions of significant people during the period of westward expansion.

SS.5.A.6.4 Explain the importance of the explorations west of the Mississippi River

SS.5.A.6.9 Describe the hardships of settlers along the overland trails to the west.

SS.5.A.1.1 Use primary and secondary sources to understand history

SC.5.E.7.5Recognize that some of the weather-related differences, such as temperature and humidity, are found among different environments such as swamp, desert, and mountains.

SC.5.E.7.6 Describe characteristics (temperature and precipitation) of different climate zones as they relate to latitude, elevation, and proximity to bodies of water.

SC.5.N.1.6 Recognize and explain the differences between personal opinion, interpretation, and verified observation.

LA.5.1.6.3 The student will use context clues to determine meanings of unfamiliar words.

LA.5.1.7.1 The student will explain the purpose of text features (e.g., format, graphics, diagrams, illustrations, charts, maps) use prior knowledge to make and confirm predictions, and establish a purpose for reading.

LA.5.2.2.1 The student will locate, explain, and use information from text features (e.g., table of contents, glossary, index, transition words or phrases, headings, subheadings, charts, graphs, and illustrations).

4. Evidence of Student Understanding (Assessment) in this Lesson:

What key knowledge and skills will students acquire as a result of this lesson?

The students will learn the vocabulary for: purchase, pathfinder, elevation, climate, weather, tributaries, water shed, sea to shining sea,

The students will utilize map skills and explore the changing boundaries in the US because of the Louisiana Purchase.

The students will research people and events associated with the Louisiana Purchase such as Thomas Jefferson, Sacagawea, Meriwether Lewis, and William Clark

The students will research the expedition of Lewis and Clark and create their own journal with entries from the online journal (primary source material) reflecting the plants, animals, climate, weather, and landforms documented in their journals.

The students will demonstrate the ability to use the online journals for research and report writing.

What will students be able to do as a result of such knowledge and skills?

As a result of this knowledge the students will be able to predict a climate or weather pattern likely to occur during travel through a particular landform.

The student will be able to identify present roads that follow the path established by the explorers of the Louisiana Purchase.

The students will be able to use a map and demonstrate where the rivers and landforms are. The students will identify how these landforms affected the explores.

The students will be able to identify some plants and animals that were unknown to settlers before Lewis and Clark made their journey.

Both formative and summative assessments are included

5. Materials Needed: (Include primary sources you will use in this lesson)

Primary sources are found at





The primary sources will allow the students to compare how different members of the Corps of Discovery saw their journey. It will allow them to see how leadership and laborers saw the journey differently. The web sites listed above show journal entries from the people who traveled with Lewis and Clark.

6. Steps to Deliver the Lesson: To introduce this lesson, ask the students if they ever purchased a surprise box where they really did not know what was in it. Have a wrapped shoe box filled with items that the students will not be able to guess such as small toy animals, leaves from different plants, feathers, and trinkets. Discuss how the price paid for the land was cheaper because no one knew what they had actually bought. Allow a small group to open the box and remove one item from it. Demonstrate how to journal write by using descriptive words what they found in the box. Continue passing the box around until all small groups have removed and recorded one item found in the box.

Ask the students how much they would pay for the box if they did not know what was in it. Explain that this box is a model of what happened to our country when we went to purchase the city of New Orleans and came back with a land purchase that doubled the size of our country.

Read the textbook (to be announced) with emphasis on headings, subheadings, illustrations, maps, and charts. Identify landforms, rivers traveled and ask if the type of land would make a difference in how fast the explorers could travel. Identify possible weather problems such as travel in the mountains in the winter. How could they plan the journey to avoid some of these problems?

7. Day two open the web site for compare the knowledge found on the pages and do a compare contrast between the textbook information and the information found in the government archives. Discuss how primary sources help us to better understand what was happening at the time. Textbook knowledge is usually secondary source, but with the journals we have a primary source documents that allows us to compare how different members of the Corps of Discovery felt. Choose groups to read the diaries looking for just what one specific person said or felt. How do the different persons see the journey?

8. Day 3 introduce the concept of journal writing and illustrating to identify animals and plants. After finding a plant illustrated in a journal from Lewis and Clark, demonstrate with a leaf rubbing (use crayons and the leaf under the paper to show the structure and veins of the leaf). Explain how leaf rubbings were done for record keeping as many of these plants had never been seen before.

9. Day 4 Research famous people from the period such as Thomas Jefferson, Sacagawea, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark , Mandan Native American tribe. If the students want to do additional research, have students’ research land forms and rivers found along the journey. Research how elevation affects climate. What rivers were used by the explorers as they looked for a northwest passage. Include the research at the front of their small book of people, plants, animals, and landforms that contributed to the knowledge gained from the Louisiana Purchase.

10. Day 5 present the small books or posters created to show information gained from research. The research, plant rubbings, small book, or posters can all be accomplished in small groups for presentations. My Friday is usually small group presentations of material learned during the lessons.

11. Differentiated Instruction Strategies: The research and small books lend themselves to differentiation. The artist will provide art work, the writer will provide descriptions for the art work, the researcher will provide information from the computer that can be paraphrased for the posters, the music person will find songs that match the period and teach the students, the naturalist will demonstrate how they could identify the difference in leaves by the structure of the leaf. Remediation is done in the small group while the different students are choosing what material they will present.

12. Technology Integration:

While research activities have been suggested for technology earlier, two additional web sites from National Geographic are fun to use.





The second is a short game that provides an assessment for knowledge of the actual trip.

13. Lesson Closure:

To draw the whole activity together we have small books, video games, leaf rubbings and now it is time to answer our big question. “How have people in the present day learned and used the information gained from the Louisiana Purchase? To produce this expository writing we will list plants, animals, people, and climate as different ways the question can be answered. The expository will demonstrate the knowledge gained from the weeks lessons and allow the students to do a reflection on what they learned and how it affects the people of the present.

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