You learn about history
while watching future unfold

Metro area kids are invited to eavesdrop on local planning for a 2003-2005 Lewis and Clark Bi-Centennial Expedition. They can learn important history lessons too.

The preliminary activities for the expedition already have started. And two local websites will keep you up to date all during the school year.

One of sites is run by the University of Missouri-St. Louis' College of Education. It's called Corps of ReDiscovery and you can reach it at www.urbanachievement.org/lc/

You can urge your local school to take an active part in planning lessons concerning the original Lewis and Clark expedition some 200 years ago. That started from St. Louis and explored the Missouri River basin.

Eventually, Lewis and Clark got all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Jim Sturm is a teacher in the Clayton schools. He's helping recruit schools to take part in the UMSL program. He's already written a sample lesson plan for the website. It will help teachers and students plan their own history and science projects.

He's interested in signing up schools all along the route of the original Lewis and Clark journey. Last month, he visited an Native American school in Pierre, S.D., to get those students involved.

Another Clayton teacher, Scott Mandrell, is planning to take a two-year leave of absence in 2003-2005. He will portray Meriwether Lewis during the re-enactment of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

The other website is for the Discovery Expedition of St. Louis. That's the group that includes boatbuilder Glen Bishop. He makes full-size replicas of the keelboats and other craft the original explorers used to travel up the Missouri River.

That website is www.lewisandclark.net.

Both websites already include a day-by-day diary and pictures from a recent trip by the keelboats crews in costume on the Missouri River through South Dakota. That August trip ran into huge man-made obstacles the original Lewis and Clark expedition didn't see.

The U.S. Corps of Engineers has built giant dams on the Missouri to attempt to control flooding.

As a result, the present-day expedition had to portage around the Big Bend, Fort Randall and Gavin Point dams.

The diary by Scott Mandrell, in costume as Meriwether Lewis, is already on both websites along with pictures. Mandrell is trying to write his diary with the same style the original Lewis used in the early 1800s.

He even signs off his diary entries with: "Your obedient servant, Scott Mandrell as Captain Meriwether Lewis."

Carl Hoagland is the director of UMSL's E. Desmond Lee Technology and Learning Center. That center is the host for the Corps of ReDiscovery website.

He said kids can get involved in the website when their schools register with the center. Teachers can get information by e-mailing Jon Basden at jbasden@mac.com. Basden is a graduate student who is in charge of the UMSL website.

Here's an example of a lesson plan written by Clayton teacher Jim Sturm which is already on the UMSL website.

The lesson proposition is: President Thomas Jefferson asks an aide to advise him whether he should support the Lewis and Clark expedition. He also wants advice on how to hide expedition expenses because Congress already has passed the current federal budget.

Students in a class would be divided into smaller groups to investigate different aspects of the problem. Those include:

• Assessing the military value of the expedition.
• Create a map of the United States for the year 1800.
• Develop a transportation timeline for the expedition. (Remember: there are no highways, railroads or motorized land vehicles at this time.)
• Assess living conditions in the 1800s.
• Detail what sort of preparations are needed for the expedition.
• Jefferson also wants background checks on Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

Another source of local information about Lewis and Clark is the Lewis and Clark Center in St. Charles. That website is at www.lewisandclarkcenter.org.

Of course you can survey this sites, along with other weblinks, just for your own fun also.