The National Road and the Way West

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.

Read how the National Road crossed the Appalachians and why leaders argued over paying for roads. The directions on the page read: Read the text. Then answer questions 1 and 2. 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.