Westward Expansion unit contains 10 learning experiences.
Learning Experiences (Lessons) in Westward Expansion Each learning experience takes about 45 minutes to teach in the device-enabled classroom.
Manifest Destiny
Students learn that Manifest Destiny was an ideology combining religion, national pride, and economic hopes. It shaped how Americans viewed Westward Expansion, inspiring opportunity while also justifying conquest and creating consequences for people already living in the land.
The Tools of Expansion
Students learn how new technologies, such as railroads, roads, canals, stagecoaches, steamboats, prairie schooners, and the telegraph, transformed transportation, improved communication, and expanded opportunities for settlement and trade during the westward expansion of the mid-1800s.
The Oregon Trail
Students learn why Americans risked traveling west on the Oregon Trail and how geography and environment shaped their experiences, discovering the opportunities that drew emigrants, the challenges they endured, and how daily life reflected both risks and hopes.
Missions and Ranches
Students learn that missions and ranches played a key role in shaping Texas, showing it was not empty land. They explore how communities, traditions, and ranching practices developed long before U.S. expansion and Manifest Destiny.
Texas and Mexico
Students learn how Texas developed under Mexican rule and transitioned into a republic by examining how various groups shaped communities, how geography influenced settlement, and how the Texas Revolution created independence, opportunities, and challenges for the new nation.
The Mexican-American War
Students learn the causes of the Mexican-American War and how its outcomes reshaped the nation, including new land from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and how these gains intensified debates over slavery in the United States.
The Calfornia Gold Rush
Students learn how the discovery of gold transformed California by driving rapid population growth, sparking immigration, reshaping communities and economies, expanding farming, and altering the environment, permanently tying the West more closely to the rest of the United States.
Westward Expansion Review
This collaborative review guides students through reflection, vocabulary, and content practice to reinforce key learning. Interactive activities and optional writing help deepen understanding before a final exit ticket.
Plains Indians Way of Life
Students learn about the Plains Indians and their way of life. Then, they learn about the importance of the American bison to the Plains tribes and how the near extinction of the buffalo affected them. Finally, students select a Plains Indian tribe for further research.
The Complete List of Units in the Grade 8 U.S. History Course.
