A CorpsQuest for Grades 5-12
Designed by
Cindy
Mapston
cmapsdenton@hotmail.com
Introduction
This lesson
was developed as part of the Lewis and
Clark Rediscovery
Project, a federally funded Technology Innovation
Challenge Grant.
Through the use of investigative
research skills students will learn about the "iron boat" taken on the Lewis
and Clark Expedition. They will determine why it was not successful.
The students will recreate a miniature iron boat using materials found in
1805. Also they will construct an "experiment boat" using materials
from today - thus showing 200 years of change. Students will form companies
and through advertising learn business strategies and sales. Student
companies will try to encourage "Thomas Jefferson" and "Meriwether Lewis"
that their boat should be the model chosen for the
expedition.
Learners
This corps quest lesson could be used with students in grades five through twelve and also in a gifted program. This lesson involves history, math, technology in integration, art, or shop classes.
The students must have prior knowledge in the use of computers and web browser research skills. It would be beneficial to the quest if the students involved have had some experience working in cooperative groups and with brainstorming strategies
Curriculum
Standards 
Golden Triangle Learner Outcomes
Social Studies
Montana History and United States History
- The student will be able to know the major events of the iron boat before and during the expedition
- The student will be able to hypothesize why the boat failed and test that hypotheses
- The student will be able to keep informed as Ken Karsmiski continues with his archeology study of the suggested location where the iron boat was buried
- The student will learn the historical facts of the iron boat from its beginnings to its end
Communication
Arts
- The student shall follow multi-step oral and written instruction
- The student shall learn to apply new vocabulary
- The student shall develop skills to expand memory through note-taking and relating new material to prior knowledge
Literature
- The student shall expand personal, aesthetic, and cultural awareness through the study of literature
- The student shall identify and apply specific strategies, and associations relating to the vocabulary of the literary work
- The student shall continue to learn and apply new vocabulary
- The student shall develop skills in organizing and expanding oral communications
Information Processing
- Students will use technology to access, retrieve, evaluate, and interpret visual/auditory information
- Students will access and retrieve electronic information
- Students will use search strategies such as using key words
- Students will use electronic reference materials such as network information systems
- Students will communicate visually, graphically, and artistically through media presentations
- Students will learn to use audio-visual equipment
- Students will communicate through networks and telecommunication
- Students will learn to save and move files and folders
Productivity
- Students will use technology and its applications to maximize productivity and effectiveness
- Students will use technology to enhance their understanding and development of basic skills
- Students will develop strategies for problem solving and critical thinking
- Students will develop basic technology skills
- Students will select and use technology appropriate to needs
- Students will operate peripheral devices
- Students will care for technology hardware and use it safely
- Students will develop an understanding of copyright laws and other ethical issues pertaining to the use of technology in society
- Students will understand basic capabilities and limitations of technology's hardware and software
Listening Skills
- Students shall follow multi-step oral and written instructions
- Students shall learn to apply new vocabulary
- Students shall develop skills to expand memory through note-taking and relating new material to prior knowledge
Study Skills
- Students shall develop organizational and problem solving skills
- Students shall continue to develop necessary to research ideas from resources such as books, people, periodicals, and web sites.
- Students shall follow multi-step oral and written instructions
- Students shall continue to develop independent study skills
Computer
Skills
- Students shall make use of computers for communication arts
- Students will become efficient at keyboarding skills
- Students will become efficient in the use of hardware and software
- Students will learn file management
Thinking
Skills
- Students shall continue to develop independent critical thinking skills which may include comparing, contrasting, inferring, evaluating, decision making, and problem solving.
- Students shall expand independent thinking
Business Concepts
- Students will learn how to make and sell a product
- Students will learn how to advertise a product for sale
- Students will develop advertising skills
Cooperative
Learning
- Students will develop the skills to work cooperatively with team members
- Students will learn how to compromise with team members
Process
This lesson will involve 3-4
weeks. It could be used in one period
a day or several periods a day, which ever works best for your
situation.
Students will be divided into groups according to your class enrollment. Each group is comprised of four roles. These roles include:
- researcher
- designer/architect
- lawyer
- advertiser
The groups could be selected by the teacher or by luck of the draw. Each group then could decide who would fulfill each role. Many of the activities will require a "group" effort.
You will also need a person to be Thomas Jefferson and Meriwether Lewis. These roles could be filled by teachers or administrators.
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If you find students who have difficulty coming up with ideas or lack the skills needed to carry out their role this corps quest could become a class project. Also you could brainstorm ideas with all the "lawyers" for example. However in doing so, you may loose the creativity that this lesson could enhance.
If you have more then one class of a grade level each classcould become a company and compete against one another. As a teacher you need the ability to become a facilitator. Each class or group will have areas of strengths and weaknesses.
To get the students actively involved in the problem solving process you could do an activity where the students make a boat from tin foil and place it in water. Students are not given any directions as how to construct their boat. They are to conduct an experiment to see which boat can hold the most number of marbles and still stay afloat.
There are many books out
their that you could use to talk about the water vessels of the time
period. Many of these books include great illustrations to give the
students ideas of where to start both on their blue prints and also on their
model.
These books include:
Going Along With Lewis and Clark by Barbara Fifer $11.95 ISBN 1-56037-151-X p. 22-25. This is a great book that shows how the corps members traveled. Great pictures and diagrams of boats used.
Lewis and Clark Explorers of the American West by Steven Kroll $6.95 ISBN 0-8234-1273-3. This book is very good with illustrations of the use of boats and their struggles with them along the trail. P. 8-10 very good and includes the iron boat or “experiment” as it was referred to.
Lewis and Clark An Illustrated History By Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns $25.00 ISBN 0-375-70652-6. This book has sections of happenings with the different kinds of boats used. It quotes from the journal entries. Good background information for the students.
West to the Pacific The Story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Ronald Fisher ISBN 0-941734-01-3. This book p. 41 talks about the experiment boat and has other good background info on the expedition.
Variations:
Depending on the amount of time available, the level of students, and the teacher's knowledge the teacher could select the roles that will be used.
Students could be required to draw up blue print plans and not actually make a scale model.
Another variation would be for the teacher to provide the materials from which the groups build their boat from.
The US Department of Commerce has an Inventive Thinking Curriculum Project : An Outreach Program of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It is free and you can obtain a copy by calling the General Information Services Division at 1-800-PTO-9199 or 703-308-4357. Their web site is www.uspto.gov. It is filled with great activities that get the students into inventive thinking and takes them through the process of the invention and the patent process.
Also there is a Young Inventors Awards Program
that is sponsored by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and NSTA. You can contact
them by calling 1-888-494-4994 or their e-mail is
younginventors@nsta.org.
Resources
Needed
These are the items needed to implement this lesson:
- E-mail accounts for each group
- Computers for each student with access to web browsers
- Journals of Lewis and Clark Volume 4 by Gary Moulton
- "We Proceed On" articles published by the Lewis and Clark Heritage Trail Foundation
BOOKS AND ARTICLES LIST:
ARTICLES:
Articles taken from the website:www.lewisandclark.org/pages/catalog.htm
1. “Meriwether Lewis at Harpers Ferry” Nov.
1994, Jeffrey, Joseph
2. “The Rocky Boat Ride of Lewis and Clark”
Feb. 1995, Large, Arlen J.
3. “A Note on the White Pirogue” May 1986,
Moulton, Gary E
4. “Captain Lewis’s Iron Boat: The Experiment”
May 1981, Rose, Donald W.
5. “Lewis’s Iron Boat” August 1997, Phil Scriver
6. “Lewis and Clark at the Portage Unveiled”
August 1989, Saindon, Bob
BOOKS:
Going Along With Lewis and Clark by Barbara Fifer $11.95 ISBN 1-56037-151-X p. 22-25. This is a great book that shows how the corps members traveled. Great pictures and diagrams of boats used.
Lewis and Clark Explorers of the American West by Steven Kroll $6.95 ISBN 0-8234-1273-3. This book is very good with illustrations of the use of boats and their struggles with them along the trail. P. 8-10 very good and includes the iron boat or “experiment” as it was referred to.
Lewis and Clark An Illustrated History By Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns $25.00 ISBN 0-375-70652-6. This book has sections of happenings with the different kinds of boats used. It quotes from the journal entries. Good background information for the students.
West to the Pacific The
Story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Ronald Fisher ISBN
0-941734-01-3. This book p. 41 talks about the experiment boat and
has other good background info on the expedition.
Lewis and Clark on The Upper Missouri by the Discovery Writers $9.49 ISBN 0-912299-84-3. Page 127 – 129 in this book tells about methods and happenings with making of some of the boats such as where Sergeant Gass constructed dugout canoes. Good background information for the expedition as well.
WEBSITES:
1.
www.lewisandclark.org/pages/catalog.htm
2.
www.lewisandclark.org/index.htm
3.
www.gorp.com/gorp/resources/us_trail
lewis+c5.htm
4.
www.ndlewisandclark.com/profiles.html
5.
www.historychannel.com/classroom/missouri/time.html
6.
www.ndonline.com/tribwebpage/features/sakakawea/sakaklc.html
7.
www.lewis-clark.org/journal_jun10-1805_more.htm
8.
www.pbs.org/lewisandclark
BOAT PLAN SITES:
1.
www.bruce-roberts.com
2.
www.theboatshop.com
3.
www.bateau.com
4.
www.homel.gte.net
5.
http://sailing.about.com/cs/helpadvise/index.htm?iam
6.
http://sailing.about.com/cs/freeplans/index.htm
7.
http://paddling.about.com/cs/canoeplans/index.htm?
8.
www.youngsaintlouis.com/archive/january200l/history.html
It would be beneficial if the students could have contact with any maritime museum, model boat clubs, businesses or industries in your area that could demonstrate basic blueprint guidelines, or any patent lawyer or office. If you do not have access to such resources then the internet will be your greatest resource to provide background knowledge.
ANIMATION AND CLIP ART SITES:
1.
www.4yeo.com
2.
www.barrysclipart.com
3.
www.animations-galore.com
Evaluation
You may use the portions of the rubric for the roles your students participated in. Feel free to adjust it to meet your own objectives.
You may want to just copy and paste
the evaluation section of the student page into this space and add any
clarifications needed for another teacher to make use of this
lesson.
Conclusion
Having participated in this corps
quest your students will have gained the following knowledge and
skills:
1. Historical knowledge on Meriwether Lewis's
iron boat
2. Maritime designing and blueprint design.
3. Cooperative learning
4. Advertisement strategies
5. Patent laws and filing of patents
Credits & References
PHOTOS:
Courtesy of Charlie Brown: Great
Falls, Montana Lewis and Clark Honor Guard; Fairfield High School History
Teacher, Fairfield, Montana
Coutesy of Cindy Mapston: 5th Grade
teacher, Denton Public School,
Denton, Montana
LITERARY
WORKS:
The Journals
of the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Gary Moulton
(editor)
We Proceed On Quarterly publication of the Lewis and Clark Heritage Trail Foundation
Lewis and Clark on The Upper Missouri by the Discovery Writers
West to the Pacific The Story of the Lewis and Clark Expeditionby Ronald Fisher
Lewis and Clark An Illustrated History By Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns
Lewis and Clark Explorers of the American West by Steven Kroll
Going Along With Lewis and
Clark by Barbara Fifer
by Bernie Dodge and EdWeb @ San Diego State University