Something Better

Students explore with Lewis and Clark:
'Then and Now'
June 2003

“What was the population of your town?”
“About 10,000.”

“Why were there three flags?”
“Because Spain, France and the United States had all owned the land.”

“How many Native Americans lived there?”
“About 40,000.”

“What tribes were they?”
“Missouri, Oto, Kansas, Iowa and Osage.”

The questions kept coming as the lesson proceeded. With each new question, a different teacher answered.

“How did they make the animal skins turn white?”
“Sun and urine.”

“What part of the plant did they use the most for medicine?”
“They mostly used the roots.”

“Why did they call it a keel boat?”
“It was a round bottom boat with a keel that went stem to stern. The keel kept the boat going in a straight line.”

“Are you really going to travel the whole trail?”
“Yes, the plan is to do the entire trail. We begin July 5 when I leave on horseback from Washington, D.C.”

It was a day of transcontinental questions and answers as students connected with each other and living-history presenters in a distance-learning videoconference entitled “Lewis and Clark Then and Now: Students Learning Together.” Held Jan. 15, 2003, the conference linked middle school students in Charlottesville, VA, and Clayton, MO, to high school students in Woodburn, OR, elementary students in Lewiston, ID, members of the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, MO, and the Hog Heaven Muzzleloaders of Idaho. The latter two groups participated in a bicentennial real-time re-enactment of the original voyage of the Corps of Discovery.

Cooperating School Districts of St. Louis televised the conference throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area and via the Internet. The conference was the first of a series of distance-learning activities that will take place over the next three years as the nation commemorates the 200th anniversary of Lewis and Clark’s historic journey.

This education initiative is a collaborative project among the Clayton School District, the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, MO, and numerous other organizations. It will allow students and teachers to interact with the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, MO, as they re-enact the three-year voyage of the Corps of Discovery.

The re-enactment
Clayton NEA member Scott Mandrell, as Meriwether Lewis, will leave Washington, D.C., on horseback July 5, and in late August his crew of historians and Lewis-and-Clark devotees will place their replica keel boat and pirogues in the Ohio River to begin the long trek toward the Pacific Ocean, following as closely as possible the dates and locales of the original expedition. Students and teachers will be able to follow the re-enactors and the people and places they meet along the way through an interactive Web site, distance-learning videoconferences and archived materials available on CD-ROM and DVD.

The distance-learning videoconference
To prepare for the Jan. 15 conference, students in each location became both researchers and presenters of information. They used primary and secondary sources to learn about the geography, economy, politics, demographics and culture of their locations in 1803 and then determined which information to present and the best way to present it to their peers at the other schools.

“We divided up into groups for each part of the video, and my group did the culture part,” Wydown sixth grader Olivia Hayes says. “We found out how the French people of St. Louis lived and then went to this rebuilt fort at Camp DuBois to film. The difficult part was finding all the historically correct information, but I liked being able to create a video for others to see. From the video, others learned what I know and what I can accomplish. It was a very neat thing to be a part of.”

Based on what they had learned in their research, each school’s students chose to emphasize what they felt was most important. Seventh-grade students at Buford Middle School in Charlottesville, VA, chose a video presentation complete with a Thomas Jefferson interpreter while students in Lewiston used a PowerPoint presentation to focus on the contributions of the Nez Perce to their area. Woodburn, OR, high school students emphasized the environment and plant life in their area.

We wanted to make sure students were an integral part of the learning experience. Even though students usually find it exciting to be connecting live to someone else, quite often, in videoconferences, they are just passive audience members who get to ask questions every once in a while. We wanted the kids to be more than interactive. We wanted them to be proactive. They became teachers for each other through their presentations and had the opportunity to satisfy their curiosity as they watched the other presentations and talked to the re-enactors. We believe the best and most interesting learning occurs when students create authentic products to present to a real audience. Based on the evaluations students completed, we reached that goal.

“The most fun thing about working on my presentation was the excitement that I would be sharing my information with younger students about what I learned,” Woodburn senior Eleazar Puente says. His sentiment is echoed by Afton, a sixth grader at Camelot Elementary in Lewiston. The best part of the project, she says, was “getting to be more hands on and being able to have the chance to talk to other kids that got to do the same thing.”

After the students had quizzed each other, they had the opportunity to do the same with the Lewis and Clark re-enactors. Mandrell as Meriwether Lewis joined Captain William Clark in Charlottesville. Expedition member Ruben Fields traveled to Clayton while Sergeant Patrick Gass and Sergeant Ordway appeared live in Lewiston.

“What the Discovery Expedition re-enactment is all about is education,” Mandrell says. “Sure, these gentlemen have done their research, built replica boats and guns, fine tuned their period uniforms and dress and are anxious to share it with kids, but it’s much more than the story of the Corps of Discovery. It is the story of the land they traveled, the people they met, the cultures they experienced. We want students and teachers to experience that same sensation as they see the land and meet the people of the trail today. That’s why we’re calling the project ‘Lewis and Clark Then and Now: Linking the Trail to America’s Students.’”

The project’s beginnings
But how did this first conference happen? What brought all these schools together?

“Janet Baldwin, our colleague at Wydown, volunteered her class and then we just got on the phone and called,” Clayton NEA member Jim Sturm explains. “We contacted the Charlottesville Public Schools last October and talked with Assistant Superintendent Marti Bass. She put us in touch with Chris Van Slooten at their middle school, and the ball started rolling.”

Baldwin, a Clayton NEA member and a National Board Certified Teacher, and her students worked closely with the Discovery Expedition to research what St. Charles and the surrounding area was like in 1803. The class prepared an iMovie to share their findings.

What really made a difference was the collaboration of the Cooperating School Districts of St. Louis and Missouri Research and Education Network.

“MOREnet and CSD are what allowed us to go national with four schools participating and more schools watching,” Sturm says. “Their continued involvement, plus collaboration with Apple, Inc., paves the way for the three-year initiative to continue linking kids across the country to each other and to numerous experts and scholars.

Project leaders are already planning distance-learning opportunities for next fall as the re-enactors travel down the Ohio and then up the Mississippi to winter camp at Wood River. Topics can vary, and the kids can experience learning in the same interdisciplinary way as the original expedition.

To learn more about the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles and "Lewis and Clark Then and Now," log on to www.lewisandclark.net. To get on the project's e-mail list, contact Tim Gore, Jim Sturm or Scott Mandrell at lewisandclark@clayton.k12.mo.us.