Covered Wagons and Geography of the Oregon Trail Integrated STEM Challenge
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- Easel Activity
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Description
Students will read about the design of prairie schooners and engineer covered wagons that can traverse a model of landforms representing the overland trails used by pioneers. This mini-unit integrates STEM skills with geography and history content, along with reading, writing, and oral communication standards. Several options for sharing student work via oral presentations and writing assignments are included. These 8 sessions are designed to follow or supplement classroom instruction on US geographic regions, landforms, and westward expansion, but it could also serve as an introduction to those concepts.
A full, free preview is available above to help you decide if this activity will be a good fit for your classroom.
This download is one pdf file that includes:
★Teacher notes and lesson plans for 8 sessions (45-60 minutes each)
★Posters for Focus Questions, Essential Vocabulary, Prairie Schooner Diagrams, and the Engineering & Design Process
★3 differentiated versions of The Prairie Schooner: A Moving Van for the Pioneers reading passage, written at about a 5th grade reading level
★Comprehension Check reading quiz and answer key
★Geographic Landforms Model Mini-Challenge worksheet
★Student pages for each step of the Engineering & Design Process
★2 writing prompts and coordinating lined paper
★Student reflection and self-evaluation
★Teacher rubric
★My unique Collaborative License, which grants you permission to share printed copies only of this resource with up to four other members of your regular teaching team! (If you’d like to share the digital file, please return to your My Purchases page to purchase additional licenses. See the Terms of Use on the final page of this resource for more information.)
Standards Addressed:
Virginia SOL USI.2, USI.8; Virginia English SOL 5.1, 5.2, 5.6, 5.7, 5.8
TEKS Social Studies 5.7B, 5.7D, 5.8B; TEKS English Language Arts and Reading 5.2, 5.11, 5.18, 5.29, 5.29
CCSS ELA RI.5.10, W.5.2, SL.5.4
Please note: This product is not editable. The included pdf file(s) have been flattened and password secured as per the included font and clip artists’ terms of use. High resolution printing is enabled. Be sure to use the latest version of Adobe Reader to view and print, as other programs may not render the file(s) correctly.
Distance learning: If needed, you may email the pdf to the parents and students you directly serve, as explained in my updated Terms of Use (2020).
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♥ Kristin
