Students will create an historic atlas of Oklahoma. By examining historical maps, students will explain how the discovery and development of resources in an area attracts settlement and the role of geography in causing forced and voluntary migration of people.

Students will identify the major transcontinental railroad routes planned in the 1850s and subsequently constructed. They will also identify and weigh the relative importance of the major geographic, economic, and political factors that influenced transcontinental railroad construction.

Students analyze the economic community in a Midwest agricultural region and identify patterns of an expanding sense of community based on the type of services provided.

Students determine the impact of gold mining operations in 1879 on the immediate environment and compare the early impacts to extraction methods and regulatory laws governing mining operations today in South Dakota.

Students define the concept of manifest destiny, discuss how contemporary maps of the 1840s influenced United States expansion in the 1840s, and analyze the relationship between manifest destiny and democracy.

Students will investigate the historical aspects of a map of 1873 that shows forest cover in the United States. Students examine this map to learn about changes in the roles and purposes of woodlands in the United States and to take a position on the future of woodlands.