Hello, and welcome to our hands on interactive approach to introducing our 4th grade class to the Oregon Trail. The overall goal for this unit is that you begin to understand what life was like for the Pioneers and Native Americans during th
e Oregon Trail excursion. We will achieve this through a number of exciting activities, shown to our left under the title "Destinations on the Trail." To introduce you to the vast journey of the Oregon Trail, an awesome 3-D map of the actual Trail route will be displayed on our projector thanks to Google Earth, which should visually give the students an idea of the immense travel the Pioneers experienced. Following this activity, you will hear and interact via the computer program “Skype” with a Professor from the Univeristy of Oregon who will be presenting the Pioneers perspective of the Trail. Next, a Native American Professor from the University of Oregon will come to our class to presnt the Native American's perspective of the Trail, and how it affected local Tribes.
Once you have an overall understanding of the Trail, you will then read, react, and discuss a number of historical fiction and nonfiction materials that reflect both the Pioneer and Native American views of the Trail, which should give you a more in depth and personal 
view of the experience. The final step in our journey culminates at the ending of the Trail, Oregon City! As a class, we will travel to Oregon City and visit their Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. After each of the previously mentioned activities, you will reflect upon your experience, and for your final assignment you will be asked to create two essay's in which you reflect what the Oregon Trail would have been like as both a Pioneer and as a Native American. These essay's will be loaded onto Google Doc’s, and will be accessible under the link “The Students' Say…” Please enjoy, and remember: The Trail is what you make it.
