TPACK Template

Content
Subject

Social Studies

Grade Level

Grade 6

Learning Objective

STANDARD USI.8b
The student will apply social science skills to understand westward expansion and reform
in America from 1801 to 1861 by
b) explaining how geographic and economic factors influenced the westward
movement of settlers
Pedagogy
Online Activity

-The teacher will give a short lecture explaining westward expansion in the early to mid 1800s
United States.
-Teacher will go over:
• Population growth in the eastern states
• Economic opportunity, such as gold (California Gold Rush), logging, farming,
freedom (for runaway slaves)
• Cheaper and faster modes of transportation, such as rivers and canals (Erie Canal),
steamboats
• Knowledge of overland trails (Oregon and Santa Fe)
• Belief in the right of Manifest Destiny—the idea that expansion was for
the good of the country and was the right of the country
-Students will be taking brief notes
-Teacher will be asking the class to themselves into Americans of the time’s shoes and
give answers to why Americans might want to move westward. The class will then answer
what obstacles they might have encountered on traveling west.
 Technology
Technology

-The class will go to https://www.visitoregon.com/the-oregon-trail-game-online/

-The class will play Oregon Trail in order to simulate what it would have been like for the
average 1800s American to travel across the country on the Oregon Trail.
-The game will teach the students on how dangerous the Oregon Trail by showing how the
decisions of the player effect the survival of the group.
-students will be given multiple attempts to try to make better decisions and students will be
given extra points on if they beat the game with their whole party survives.
-Students will then collaborate with each other on how their different decisions effected their
group.