Welcome to the Lewis and Clark Rediscovery Project.

This 5-year project is a professional development strategy for assisting K-12 teachers across the nation in infusing technology in teaching and curriculum development. Focusing on common themes of community and culture, history, science, arts and geography they will share local stories, data and multimedia in a Bicentennial Commemoration of the historic expedition and adventures of the Corps of Discovery led by Lewis & Clark. In local and national projects teachers and their students will investigate what 200 years of change has meant for our local, regional and national setting, our physical environment, ecosystems, cultural relations, trade and diplomacy, and democracy.

Following is a little background on Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery, and our Rediscovery interests in sharing "local stories of 200 years of change" in communities along the historic Lewis & Clark Trail.....

In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson was pleasantly surprised by Napoleon's decision to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States. Anxious to follow up on this fantastic turn of events and to determine what this meant to the country, Jefferson commissioned his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to conduct an expedition to the Pacific coast. Primary purposes of the trip were to discover an all-water route to the Pacific and to protect the commercial interests of the US against foreign infringement.

Native "ownership" and stewardship of the land was never in question. It is at once a complex but also a simple situation in many peoples' minds; and an all too common happening in the early days of the 19th Century. It was the policy of the US (admittedly a "conquering nation") to secure its own interest and especially to exclude other foreign European nations. As far as Indian Tribal sovereignty, the US having "purchased" the territories from the French, assumed that the true ownership of the land had been secured by the French, and thus rightly transferred to the US upon sale. This is not the whole story by any means, not the whole of the truth behind what became, for some the beginning of the end, and for others the opening of vast new opportunities. Our nations peoples, multicultural and most diverse of all nations on Earth have been dealing with the ramifications of this legacy for the last 200 years.

But at the time, Jefferson was keenly interested in the scientific prospects of the proposed cross-country exploration and mapping endeavor. Among other things, he wondered if signs of the woolly mammoth, the giant sloth, dinosaurs, and other natural wonders would be found. While Lewis and Clark found that a water course route from coast to coast was not possible, their expedition excited the new nation with their startling discoveries.

The Lewis and Clark expedition observed and documented many species of flora and fauna (a good number of which were entirely new to occidental science), completed a new map of the US from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River, and provided an eyewitness account of the great Rocky Mountains. They also gained a great deal of knowledge about the cultures of the nations of Native Americans living along the trail. Their expedition opened the door for westward expansion and the growth of the new nation. It would only take a few short decades for significant changes in the cultural mix of local populations, in resource use and in the way people related to the land and ecosystems.

This Lewis & Clark Rediscovery Project will use the Lewis and Clark expedition as an overall theme to provide an interdisciplinary framework for teachers and students to blaze a new trail through the use of cutting-edge technology for teaching and learning. Broad in scope, this project will develop various resources based on the Lewis and Clark theme and the change their famous voyage signaled to help teachers and students across the country to build their skills and confidence to effectively employ technology in the classroom. This project will be part of the bicentennial commemoration of the Lewis and Clark expedition and offer opportunity to explore native Indian cultures and their rich heritage as well as a forum for inquiry into 200 years of change in America.