Life on the Oregon Trail

A WebQuest for 4th Grade 

Designed by Cindi Zulkoski and Stephanie Smith

Introduction

This lesson was created as a Web Quest for Ed Tec 570 at San Diego State University, as part of the Teacher Credentialing program.

The lesson is designed to accompany a unit on Westward Expansion and the Oregon Trail. The students will use a variety of internet resources to learn about the harships faced by pioneers, people the pioneers  may have encountered along thier journey, and the routes taken by those travelling West.

Students will put themselves in the position of a family of pioneers and work in groups of three to create a five-day travelouge of their journey. The presentation will include a daily log of the students' progress toward completion of the project, a Power Point presentation of their travelogue, and a map of the Oregon Trail created by a team member.

Learners

This lesson is based on Fourth Grade Social Studies standards. The students will need to have prior knowledge on searching websites on the internet, as well as PowerPoint. They will also need to have some background knowledge on what life was like on the Oregon Trail and why people were making the grand journey. The students will not receive a lot from the lesson if they have not had any background information on the subject. 

Curriculum Standards

Social Studies Standards Addressed

• 4.2-1 Discuss the major nations of California Indians, including their geographic distribution, economic activities, legends, and religious beliefs; and describe how they depended on, adapted to, and modified the physical environment by cultivation of land and use of sea resources. 
• 4.2-2 Identify the early land and sea routes to, and European settlements in, California with a focus on the exploration of the North Pacific (e.g., by Captain James Cook, Vitus Bering, Juan Cabrillo), noting especially the importance of mountains, deserts, ocean currents, and wind patterns. 
• 4.3 Students explain the economic, social, and political life in California from the establishment of the Bear Flag Republic through the Mexican-American War, the Gold Rush, and the granting of statehood.
  

• Teamwork/Compromise
• Critical Thinking
• Inference
• Creativity

Process

The steps below are the instructions that the students will receive. However, there are a few little details that may need to be explained in more depth:

This lesson is going off of the assumption that the students are failry computer literate, meaning they are familiar with Power Point, and know how to conduct searches on a website. It is aslo assumed that they know how to cut and paste image from Google. If they do not know how to do all of these things then the lesson will take longer and there will need to be introductory lessons performed.

This lesson is going to take a while to complete. It will depend on how quickly the class works on it, but it should take almost a full week to complete. It is aslo done in groups. If you think your students will work well choosing their own groups, then by all means, but you may want to assign the groups so the higher students can help the lower students, or according to skill level. That is completely up to you.


Step 1

Every memebr of the team should look at the links on this site to get you started:

End of the Oregon Trail History page

Step 2

Now that you have some basic information about the trail, click on one of the links below to find out about your specific duty for this project.

Step 3

Each day as your team gathers information complete this Travelogue Daily Log to keep yourselves on track. Have this log approved and signed by your teacher each day and before beginning your final presentation.


Step 4

The final step in this process will be to present your travelogue to the class in a Power Point presentation accompanied by your map of the Oregon Trail.  Each day of your journey should be presented on a separate page in your presentation to make it look well organized. You amy include images if you wish. A great site for downlading images is on Google Images.


Step 5


HAVE FUN!

Variations

If you want to vary the lessons you can include different roles into the assignment. You can have one student act as a Native American who encounters pioneers making the westward journey. You can have the students write letters home to other friends and family members describing the journeys. You could also have the students write an entry everytime they enter new terrain or hardships, rather than five consecutive days. The possibilities are endless.

Resources Needed

• Computers with internet access

• Computers with PowerPoint

• Background information about the Oregon Trail so the students have some prior knowledge

Evaluation

Credits & References

Thank you to the sources for the links provided on this page:

The End of The Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail

Thanks to Google for the images.

Thank you also to San Diego State's Educational Technology department for the following resources:

 The WebQuest Page
 Design Patterns  for Web Quest pages.

"We all benefit by being generous with our work. Permission is hereby granted for other educators to copy this WebQuest, update or otherwise modify it, and post it elsewhere provided that the original author's name is retained along with a link back to the original URL of this WebQuest. On the line after the original author's name, you may add Modified by (your name) on (date). If you do modify it, please let me know and provide the new URL."