When the Revolutionary War began with the fighting at Lexington and Concord in 1775, what is now the United States was only 13 small colonies trapped between the Atlantic Ocean and the Appalachian Mts. By 1860, less than 100 years later, the young nation had spread its borders westward to the Pacific Ocean. This dramatic growth will be the focus of our project.

Read pp. pp. 318-322, pp. 356-357, and pp. 393- 417 in your textbook. Then study the attached pages. They contain note-style information about how the U.S. gained the territory it needed and wanted to expand across North America in the years between 1783 and 1860. Your task is to present this information in a different way.

Your presentation could take a number of forms. Some ideas are:

These are only a few of the possibilities! Be creative and original, but be sure that you also...

show the growth of the United States, and

explain how, when, and why each territory became a part of the U.S.

General Information:

  1. You may work alone or with a partner on this project.
  2. Additional information can be found in your textbook, in the various books and other resources in your classroom, in the school library, and at the bookmarked web sites in your classroom.
  3. Most of your time in class will be devoted to working on this project. It is also expected that you will work on this project outside of class! Those who do not have evidence of satisfactory progress toward completion will be assigned an alternate independent activity.
  4. Some class time may be used for warmup activities, notes, filmstrips, or videos.
  5. There may be homework assignments, separate from this project, that all students will be expected to complete.
  6. Your project will be due at the beginning of your class on Tuesday, May 13.

Clip Art

Useful Links:

In General...

The Territories...

More links will be added as the project develops!