Summer 2003
LEWISTON AND KAMIAH, Idaho—Sometime this summer, if all goes according to plan, members of Congress will sit down with a troop of veteran explorers and hear about the discoveries made along a route that cuts across North America, bound for the future. "We will be reporting back to the Congress on the success of our mission," explains Robert Kearney, one of the leaders of the expedition.
If this scenario sounds a bit familiar, it's no accident. Two centuries ago, Lewis and Clark reported back to Congress about the success of their mission. This time around, the explorers are all educators. Their mission, Kearney explains, "has been to infuse technology into K-12 education." And they have much to report.
The Lewis and Clark Rediscovery Project involves 54 teachers from eight states spread along the route traveled by the Corps of Discovery. Based at the University of Idaho with the Potlatch School District serving as fiscal agent, the project is one of 100 Technology Innovation Challenge Grants funded by Congress. Five-year funding of more than $7 million has resulted in extensive professional development and the creation of new online resources to help teachers harness technology to enhance learning. The Rediscovery Project also uses the epic story of Lewis and Clark as a theme for connecting communities and bringing a sense of adventure to the act of learning.
Although the Rediscovery Project was launched at the dawn of the 21st century, participants are still heeding the call issued by President Jefferson 200 years earlier. "Learn all you can" were Jefferson's parting words to the original Corps of Discovery. His message continues to inspire today's educational explorers.
Kearney, former chair of the physics department at the University of Idaho, was toying with the idea of retirement when the chance to lead the Rediscovery Project came along.
"My wife tells me I've failed at retirement," he says, sitting in an office piled high with computers, digital cameras, and other gear that will wind up in classrooms across the country.
After a lifetime spent in Idaho, Kearney was familiar with the broad strokes of the Lewis and Clark story. You can't help but bump into reminders of their trek in this state, which has embraced Lewis and Clark history as a way to promote modern-day tourism. Highways are dotted with roadside markers showing the two explorers in silhouette. Mountain trails follow the footsteps they took over ancient Indian paths. And riverfront parks commemorate sites where the explorers switched from traveling on horseback to journeying by canoe to reach the Pacific Coast.
"I was never a Lewis and Clark freak," Kearney says, "although I know some who are. I'm more interested in seeing teachers use technology for teaching and learning. That's the thrust of this project. It's hooked onto Lewis and Clark because that gives us a focus."
In a nifty metaphor, the original Corps of Discovery employed many of the best practices used in education today. The explorers pursued a powerful version of project-based learning. Real-world challenges motivated them to master new skills, from making canoes out of logs to making meals out of foods they had never tasted before. Their field studies cut across disciplines, including biology, cartography, mathematics, sociology, languages, and medicine. They kept detailed journals, reminding future generations of the power of well-chosen words. They learned to work as a team and to share leadership roles. And they were driven by a spirit of inquiry, a quest to describe and map all they saw.
As a scientist and an educator, Kearney appreciates the value of inquiry. The same process that has expanded the boundaries of scientific knowledge also helps students advance their understanding of new concepts. Through the Rediscovery Project, he says, "We have history teachers, art teachers, and English teachers using inquiry methods to explore what has changed in their communities over the past 200 years. What are the changes? How do you go about finding out? That's inquiry."
Before Lewis and Clark began their legendary road trip, they learned how to use all the tools that were then available to help them on their way. President Jefferson arranged for the nation's leading scientists to conduct pre-expedition tutorials in topics such as celestial navigation and cartography. In much the same way, Kearney and his collaborators with the Lewis and Clark Rediscovery Project are tutoring educators in using new tools that will help them reach their destination—classrooms where all students are engaged in active learning. Herewith, a couple dispatches from the field.
Teacher Amy Woods is a product of Kamiah, Idaho, a town of about 1,000 that grew up alongside the Clearwater River and built its local economy on timber. Both her parents were teachers, and she remembers "a wonderful education" here, surrounded by tall trees and open spaces. The closest "big" city is Lewiston, about 65 miles downstream and with a population today of about 30,000.
Of course she knew the Lewis and Clark party had once passed this way, but admits, "I was not aware of the significance of their visit to this area. There was not even a page in our history books about them." And although Kamiah's public schools sit on land owned by the Nez Perce tribe, until recently Woods knew nothing about the role of Native Americans in the Lewis and Clark story. "Native Americans saved the lives of the men in the expedition—more than once," Woods understands today. "But I had never heard that. We grew up here knowing nothing about the Nez Perce people."
In 1998, Woods had the brainstorm of launching an outdoor workshop to provide her students with a hands-on learning experience. She was inspired by attending a conference for middlelevel educators. Listening to another teacher extol the benefits of getting students out of the traditional classroom, she began to ponder how she could do the same with her eighth-graders.
"The classroom gets stagnant, for students and teachers alike," says Woods, who splits her teaching duties between Kamiah Middle School and Kamiah High School. "The appeal of an outdoor workshop is obvious. If students have an opportunity to experience firsthand what they are reading about," she says, "learning doesn't get much more real than that."
Woods selected Lewis and Clark as a theme because it's part of her community's legacy. It's also a whopper of an adventure story, certain to grab the imagination of middle school students. "This is the best survival story out there," she says, her bright blue eyes flashing enthusiasm. "You can watch a version of 'Survivor' on TV, but this is it." As she dug into history herself, Woods found a wealth of written materials to use in her language arts classes. She also saw the potential to weave in science, social studies, and other disciplines, and to enlist parents and other community members. "By now, the whole community gets involved," she says. But Woods's colleagues credit her for the project's success. This year, the Idaho Humanities Council honored her as an outstanding teacher.
From the start, Woods has brought a Native American perspective to her project, inviting local Nez Perce leaders and artists to conduct workshop sessions. In Kamiah schools, about 15 percent of students are Nez Perce. Relations between Native students and non-Natives "have not always been good," Woods admits. "One of our goals of the outdoor workshop was to improve that."
As a veteran teacher, Woods could see the benefits of a more multicultural education. "Our Native students would have a better appreciation for Lewis and Clark's role in history. Our non-Native students would develop an appreciation for Nez Perce culture." And all students, she hoped, would remember their three days of outdoor learning as a capstone of their middle school career.
For the past six years, the Lewis and Clark Nez Perce Outdoor Workshop has been weaving together these two strands of American history. For three days in late May, timed to coincide with the blooming of the camas flowers, eighth-graders move their classroom to an encampment on Musselshell Meadow. They sleep in tepees, identify flora documented by the Corps of Discovery and gathered by the Nez Perces, and record their experiences in journals they make by hand. Since 2001, when Woods and two colleagues from Kamiah joined the Lewis and Clark Rediscovery Project, a third strand has been intertwined with the first two. "Technology has been infused into the curriculum, allowing students to capture and record the experience digitally," she explains.
Although the three days spent under open skies are the highlight of the students' experience, their learning begins long before the actual encampment. Among the many activities of the semester-long unit:
Before they head outdoors, students also get up to speed on using a variety of technical tools. They learn about global positioning system (GPS) receivers, handheld units that allow users to plot coordinates and download data into computer mapping software. They have a hands-on lesson in using digital cameras and software for editing images. They learn about protocols for gathering scientific data. Like members of the Corps of Discovery getting ready to embark back in 1803, or today's astronauts preparing for a space launch, students share the excitement of gearing up for an adventure into parts unknown to them.
When it's finally time to move to Musselshell Meadow, students plunge into three days jam-packed with adventures. They live, breathe, and even eat history. Meals are cooked in the open air. Members of the Nez Perce tribe prepare a traditional salmon bake, followed by drumming and dancing. An expert at cooking with Dutch ovens makes a feast that doubles as a history lesson. Forestry experts guide students on field research, helping them become keen observers of nature. There are no showers, but at least a few students can be counted on to plunge into the cold river water. To the amazement of Woods, this is the first camping experience for at least a few students every year. "I assumed all kids growing up in Idaho would go camping," she says. Shaking her head and laughing, she adds, "Turns out I was wrong." So basic outdoors skills have been added to the lesson plans.
Although presenters vary from year to year, some have become cornerstones of the curriculum. A local Nez Perce family arrives with a string of horses to explain the tribe's expertise as breeders and equestrians. In 1805, when the Corps switched from horseback to canoes to complete their journey west, Lewis and Clark entrusted their horses to the care of a Nez Perce named Twisted Hair. Today, members of the Nez Perce tribe continue to be involved in breeding Appaloosa stock. Other tribal members teach students how to do beadwork or make moccasins. Native women known as "the gatherers" explain how medicines are made from plants that still grow in the region. During Lewis and Clark's trek west, many of the expedition members were exhausted and ill by the time they reached what's now Idaho. The Nez Perces could easily have overtaken them. Instead, they offered the weary travelers food and herbal remedies to nurse them back to health.
It may take students years to appreciate all that they experienced during their three days of outdoor learning. Predicts Todd Nygaard, a counselor at Kamiah High and also a member of the Lewis and Clark Rediscovery Project: "Their appreciation for the experience will grow as they get older and have a chance to reflect."
Students now attending Kamiah High already wax nostalgic about their eighth-grade camp out. One boy says he remembers the fun of doing an orienteering activity that required students to use GPS units. Another shivers and describes a spring downpour that left him drenched to the bone. "But dinner was great—I can still smell the salmon cooking," he adds. A girl smiles and says she liked sitting in a meadow, writing haiku in her journal. "It was unforgettable," adds a classmate.
As for Woods, her favorite part of the experience "is getting to see these kids in a different environment." She began her career teaching in the elementary grades, when so much is still new and fresh in the lives of young children. "That doesn't happen so much in the middle grades. Most of the time, you're reinforcing and expanding on what students already know. You're not introducing so many brand-new experiences." During the outdoor workshop, though, Woods can see her adolescent students recapture their sense of wonder. "They share three days of 'ahas!'" Out on Musselshell Meadow, they might find a wildflower that they've never seen before. When they learn it's a plant that was also new to Lewis and Clark, they appreciate what it means to make a discovery. "They're seeing things for the first time—discovering new information. As a teacher," Woods adds, "I love to be part of those first learning experiences."
Whether he's strolling among the headstones in the oldest section of the Lewiston cemetery or admiring the Queen Anne architecture of homes built here a century ago, Steven Branting is alert for signs of change. "In every community," says the veteran teacher, "you can find data that will help you trace changes over time."
For the past two school years, Branting has been helping a group of motivated students use a variety of technologies to track the evolution of their hometown. At Jenifer Junior High, where he is a consultant for gifted education, Branting cuts a distinctive figure in bow tie and suspenders. His students, who take his course as an elective, describe him as the kind of teacher who "doesn't let anything hold you back," as one eighth-grader puts it. "He asks us a question, then helps us along while we try to find a way to answer it."
It's a formula that seems to be working. Students in the elective class won a national award last year for creating a digital community atlas, which traces 200 years of change in their hometown. The award was given by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), makers of the high-powered ArcView mapping software that the students learned to use to create computer-generated maps. As part of the recognition, students presented their project to an audience of more than 11,000 last summer in San Diego. Confides one of the boys with pride, "We've had college students tell us we do more interesting stuff than they get to do."
Branting learned to use the mapping software himself through the Lewis and Clark Rediscovery Project. He serves as the project's cartographer, among other roles. "I have a lot of background in making maps," he says, "but it's all been by hand. I've used the traditional methods." Those methods haven't changed much since William Clark used them to chart the first maps of the West. Branting could see that the mapping software opened some exciting possibilities, especially when coupled with GPS units that record coordinates in the field, data sets provided by the U.S. Census and other sources, and satellite photos that can capture the smallest details in an aerial view.
The students at Jenifer Junior High have learned to use all these tools to create their comprehensive community atlas. In a series of electronic slides that include maps, photographs, and text, their atlas shows how Lewiston has evolved since Lewis and Clark's first visit in 1805. Discussions and visuals focus on land use, industry, housing, education, and other topics. (The project is online at www.esri.com/industries/k-12/atlas/lewiston/index.html.)
Once they completed the atlas, students were ready to tackle more specific challenges that bring together history and technology. Their teacher pointed them in the direction of an intriguing local mystery: What happened a century ago, when Lewiston outgrew its first cemetery and moved the old graves to a new setting? Who lies buried in the section of unmarked graves?
The junior high students had no qualms about investigating the resting place of their city's earliest citizens. Armed with GPS units and digital cameras, they walked the rows of headstones. They entered the coordinates of every grave dated earlier than 1888, when the old cemetery was relocated. Back at the school library, they used computers to generate a database of information about the 120 deceased. They used mapping software and satellite photos to create a visual representation of the cemetery. More research sent them looking through old newspapers for obituaries. They found more than 50 names of those who had died before 1888, but whose graves could not be found in the newer cemetery.
The mystery of the unmarked graves all but solved, students are now preparing to take a subterranean look by using ground-penetrating radar and magnetic induction to "read" the unknown grave sites. Says Branting: "My students have learned they can solve mysteries through technology."
Branting continues to pose questions that get students—and teachers—excited about learning. For the Lewis and Clark Rediscovery Project, he has created a series of WebQuests that challenge students to use online sources to solve mysteries. He also conducts professional development workshops for his colleagues about how to design a good WebQuest so that students will use inquiry methods to reach their own conclusions.
"As a teacher, you don't want to give the students too many answers," he says. "Your role is to help students organize their thinking. Give them a structure, and make technology available to help them come up with their own solutions." (Descriptions of his WebQuests—ranging from how a sextant works to investigating Meriwether Lewis's death—are online at www.lewiston.k12.id.us/sbranting/newport/home.htm.)
In his own career in the classroom, Branting has honed his skills at differentiating instruction. His role as a consultant in the Lewiston schools "is not just to help teach gifted students," he explains. "I'm trying to enrich the program to challenge all kids." Too many learning activities have a built-in ceiling, he says. "They aren't open-ended enough." His strategy is to set the sky as the limit, so that students ready to take off can do so. At the same time, he makes minimum expectations clear and also "high enough" so that all students will have to stretch to reach their goals.
Two centuries ago, President Jefferson sent the Corps of Discovery west in pursuit of interesting questions: What's out there? What can you learn about plants, animals, people, rivers, resources? Today, says Branting, every community can still find good questions to investigate. And in the pursuit of answers, students will experience the thrill of "learning all you can."
As the Lewis and Clark Rediscovery Project approaches its last year of grant funding, participants are focusing on disseminating the lessons they have learned. The lead teachers are conducting inservice training sessions for their local colleagues and planning intensive summer workshops. "The object is for teachers to come in the door with a lesson in mind and leave at the end of the week with technology integrated into that lesson to make it better," explains Kearney.
In addition, the Rediscovery Web site (http://rediscovery.ed.uidaho.edu/) continues to expand with classroom resources developed by this 21st century corps of educators. The site has become the gateway to everything from photo libraries of sites along the trail to community stories documenting evidence of change. Graduate-level courses are available through a distance-learning arrangement with the University of Idaho.
The big lessons learned through the Rediscovery Project will live on, Kearney predicts. Every community in the country has seen "an enormous amount of local changes" since the day when Lewis and Clark first set their sights on the West. "And looking at change offers an interesting way to get kids focused on using technology to help them learn," Kearney says. When you turn kids loose with a good question and the right tools, he adds, "they just mow you out of the way." 
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