Discover Lewis and Clark

We've offered hands-on history footlockers for years and have been slowly (too slowly!) updating and revising their contents.

Thanks to the teachers who helped us test our "Discover Lewis and Clark" lesson plans and who provided invaluable feedback, we are able to offer new and improved lesson plans to go along with some exciting new objects--including a sextant, grizzly bear hide (including head and claws), peace medal, Métis sash--for one of our most popular footlockers. "Discover Lewis and Clark" now joins "Montana's State Symbols," "Coming to Montana: Immigrants from around the World," and "The Original Governor's Mansion: Home to the Stewart Family in Turbulent Times, 1913-1921" on our list of new and improved footlockers!

Like all of our hands-on history footlockers, "Discover Lewis and Clark" can be ordered for two weeks through our online reservation system. No rental fee is charged for the use of footlockers. However, schools are responsible for the cost of shipping the footlocker to the next venue.

I just checked with my colleague who handles reservations and "Discover Lewis and Clark" is fully booked for the rest of the year. However, you can still check out the User Guide to preview the contents as well as to find lessons on Lewis and Clark's role as naturalists and geographers, their encounters with native peoples, art inspired by the journey, and information about some of the tribal nations whose land the expedition passed through. Many of the lessons don't require that you get the footlocker (we've made all of the two-dimensional material--paintings, maps--available as PowerPoints on our website). However you'll want to, because teaching with objects is that powerful.

To dull your disappointment, I encourage you to look into getting one of our other footlockers, particularly "Coming to Montana: Immigrants from around the World" or "The Original Governor's Mansion: Home to the Stewart Family in Turbulent Times, 1913-1921." Both of these have amazing objects (a Swedish rosette iron and Victrola records, for example). "The Original Governor's Mansion" footlocker is particularly underused, I think because teachers believe it is just about the mansion. It's actually about growing up during the Progressive Era and World War I. (Need more encouragement? A retired Colstrip teacher regularly listed the OGM footlocker as her favorite in my annual surveys.)

But back to our newest offering: "Discover Lewis and Clark." You can explore the footlocker in detail here, but below is a list of the lesson titles to further pique your interest:

Lesson 1: Starting the Expedition*
Lesson 2: Neither Empty Nor Unknown: Montana at the Time of Lewis and Clark (NENUK) Lesson Plan*¹
Lesson 3:  Mapmaking^
Lesson 4: The Elusive Northwest Passage*¹
Lesson 5: On the Trail with Lewis and Clark¹
Lesson 6: Step into the Picture*¹
Lesson 7: The Métis and the Lewis and Clark Expedition^
Lesson 8: Lewis and Clark and the Sicangu Lakota at Bad River
Lesson 9: Lewis and Clark: Naturalists*¹
Lesson 10: Point of View: Grizzly Bears*^{^}

*Lessons using primary sources
¹Lessons you can do without ordering the trunk
^This lesson uses items from the footlocker but can be modified to teach without the footlocker.