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The journey is difficult, immense. We will travel as far as we can, but we cannot in one lifetime see all that we would like to see or to learn all that we hunger to know. ~Loren Eiseley, poet and essayist

In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.
~Ansel Adams, photographer

This Primary Source Set includes images and analysis tools to help teach about Hispanic Exploration in America.

Use these lesson plans (created by educators for educators) to explore topics about exploration and explorers with your students in your classroom:

Explorations - (Grades 8-12) Students are introduced to historical perspectives of nature and the environment. Early Images of the United States includes many images recorded by early explorers of the American West.

Marco Paul's Travels on the Erie Canal - (Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8) Students trace Marco Paul’s 1840s journey through the Erie Canal.

Journeys West - (Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8,) Students access primary sources to develop an understanding of westward expansion and use this understanding to complete an interdisciplinary WebQuest.

Drake’s West Indian Voyage 1588-1589 - (Grades 6-8,) Students investigate maps depicting a voyage by Sir Francis Drake involving attacks on Spanish settlements around the Atlantic. Students look closely at the details and draw conclusions about individual events as well as the entire voyage.

Waldseemuller’s Map: World 1507 - (Grades 6-8,) Students investigate this historic map by looking closely at the details of each section of the map and then draw conclusions on the revelation of this new and unusual world to the people of 1507.

Is there a title (or two) that you always read to (or with) your students when teaching about this theme? Are there invaluable reference books that you use? Staff from The Library of Congress have begun a collection of titles for the "Exploration and Explorers" theme. We hope you will contribute your favorites to our growing bibliography!

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Create your own collaborative lesson plans using material related to this month's theme assembled from The Learning Page Collection Connections:

Westward by Sea: A Maritime Perspective on American Expansion, 1820-1890 - (Summary and Teaching Resources)

Evolution of the Conservation Movement: 1850-1920, The - (Summary and Teaching Resources) Journals and images document explorations of the American frontier.

Mapping the National Parks - (Summary and Teaching Resources)

California As I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California - (Summary and Teaching Resources)

Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910 - (Summary and Teaching Resources)

Prairie Settlement: Nebraska Photographs and Family Letters, 1862-1912 - (Summary and Teaching Resources)

History of the American West: 1860-1920: Photographs from the Collection of the Denver Public Library - (Summary and Teaching Resources)

Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920: Photographs from the Fred Hultstrand and F.A. Pazandak Photograph Collections, The - (Summary and Teaching Resources)

Railroad Maps, 1828-1900 - (Summary and Teaching Resources)

Trails to Utah and the Pacific: Diaries and Letters, 1846-1869 - (Summary and Teaching Resources)

First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820, The - (Summary and Teaching Resources) This collection consists of 15,000 pages of original historical material documenting the land, peoples, exploration, and transformation of the trans-Appalachian West from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century.

United States and Brazil: Expanding Frontiers, Comparing Cultures, The - (Summary Only)

Parallel Histories: Spain, the United States and the American Frontier - (Summary and Teaching Resources)

Meeting of the Frontiers: Siberia, Alaska and the American West - (Summary Only)

France in America - (Summary and Teaching Resources) This collaborative digital library explores the history of the French presence in North America from the first decades of the 16th century to the end of the 19th century.

Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake - (Summary Only)

Louisiana: European Explorations and the Louisiana Purchase - (This collection features 119 documents—from maps to newspapers to cultural artifacts - related to the inclusion of Louisiana into the nation.)

These terms may be useful when searching for items related to this theme in the American Memory collections.