Map Scale on the Santa Fe Trail

Use the National Road sheet to open the unit, then the timeline. The map scale and pass sheets work well as a pair because both ask why travelers chose one route over another.

Measure legs of the Santa Fe Trail with a map scale and compare the Cimarron and Mountain routes. The directions on the page read: Read the top box. Measure each leg of the trail with a strip of paper and the scale, as the bottom box explains, and write the miles in the page 2 table. An answer key is included.

Yes, both. We made it for 8th grade Westward Expansion and Trails, and it works the same at home or at school. At home, a student can work through it alone and then go over it with you, which shows quickly what is solid and what needs another look. In class it works as independent practice, homework or a warm-up, and you can print one copy or a full set.

Manifest destiny was the idea that the United States should spread across the continent. The timeline sheet connects it to Texas statehood, the Oregon Treaty, the gold find at Coloma and the Gadsden treaty.

Students find out themselves by measuring each leg on the map with a strip of paper and the scale. They add the legs for the Cimarron Route and the Mountain Route, which was about 50 miles longer.

Most of it began in quartz veins in the Sierra Nevada. Rain, frost and rivers wore the rock away, and the heavy gold settled in stream gravels in the foothills, where miners washed it out with pans and sluices.