USGS Resources for Teaching About Lewis and Clark

The USGS publishes nearly 100,000 different maps, aerial photographs, books, booklets, posters, CDs, digital data, and satellite imagery, many of which are useful for teaching about Lewis and Clark, Native Americans, and the cultural and physical geography of the United States, past and present. These resources can be used in an inquiry-based setting in a variety of courses and projects at the elementary, secondary, and university levels. In addition, the USGS hosts Internet-based resources that can be used for teaching about Lewis and Clark.

Descriptions of some of these items and how to use them in education are at left.

Why teach about Lewis and Clark? The Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803-1806 from Virginia to the Oregon Pacific Coast allows students to be engaged in exciting projects and investigations that are connected to national and state educational content standards, and explore the following disciplines and topics:

Physical Geography--Landforms, climate, vegetation, watersheds, water resources, river processes, alpine processes, glacial processes.

Cultural Geography--Interaction between Native Americans and European-Americans; past and present-day settlement of each; population change on the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Pacific Coast.

Environmental Studies--Flora and fauna of the US Interior Lowlands, Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Pacific Coast; current environmental concerns in the region.

History--Reasons for the expedition, chronology of events, why and how events unfolded as they did, how the expedition affected future cultural and political geography of the region.

Mathematics--Logistics and distances of the expedition; latitude-longitude, measurements, cartography.

Civics--Political climate of the newly formed United States, 19th Century history, ramifications of the expedition.

Economics--Commodities exchanged and cataloged on the expedition; comparison to current economic activities in the region.

To order USGS maps or other products, contact:

Your authorized USGS Business Partner. A listing of these is available on:

http://rockyweb.cr.usgs.gov/acis-bin/querypartner.cgi

Order online: http://store.usgs.gov

or email: ask@usgs.gov

or visit: http://ask.usgs.gov

or call 1-888-ASK-USGS

or write: US Geological Survey, Map Distribution, Denver Federal Center, Box 25286,

Denver, Colorado 80225-0286 USA

Or access the order form: http://mac.usgs.gov/mac/isb/pubs/forms/usgsbooks.html

U.S. Department of the Interior
U.S. Geological Survey
Rocky Mountain Mapping Center
Maintainer: webmaster@rockyweb.cr.usgs.gov
URL:http://rockyweb.cr.usgs.gov /public/outreach/lewisclark/lc_usgseducation.html
Last modified: 6 January 2004