Add a Curriculum Bundle to Your Account!
Please select a bundle.
The Pack contains associated resources for the learning experience, typically in the form of articles and videos. There is a teacher Pack (with only teacher information) and a student Pack (which contains only student information). As a teacher, you can toggle between both to see everything.
Here are the teacher pack items for Moving Westward:
Overview In this experience, students learn about nineteenth-century developments in transportation that led to westward expansion and increased economic development in the United States. Then, students select one mode of transportation and create a timeline of the key events in its development. Objectives:
America in the 1800s was much different than it is today. There were only 16 states and around 5 million people living primarily along the eastern side of the country. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 helped set the stage for this change by creating a system for adding new states as the country grew westward. This law made it possible for territories to become states, allowing new areas to be settled as people moved west. In this experience, you will learn about the westward expansion of the population and the contribution of improved transportation systems.
Objectives:
As people moved west in the early 1800s, it became clear that transportation needed to improve. Roads were slow and hard to travel, and rivers and oceans weren’t easy to reach.
By the end of the 1800s, things had changed. New roads, canals, and the steamboat made travel and moving goods much easier. Manufactured goods, raw materials, and crops could now be transported across the country. This time period is now referred to as the “transportation revolution.”Think about what it took to build roads and canals in the 1800s. What challenges do you think people faced in improving the country’s transportation system?
Discuss with students some of their responses. Remind them that in the 1800s there were no motorized machines for building and drilling. There were no power tools or electricity. Construction was done by hand with manual labor. Dynamite was used for breaking up rocks. Conditions were dangerous and the work was extremely difficult. Student response topics might include: tools, labor, engineering, supplies, etc.
