Thanks to funding from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program, we have developed two games in the past year that focus specifically on primary sources (Warrior Vets and You are Here: On the Lewis & Clark Trail), a third game that uses primary sources (Follow the Bubbles), a fourth game in development and will be starting on a fifth game in July.
Why primary sources?
Today, when we think of learning about sources, it is often in the context of teaching students to question what they see or read in social media. However, as one of the members of our latest teacher game design cohort pointed out, knowing the source of information has always been important.
In Hawaiian, when someone tells us something, we ask, “Did you see it with your own eyes, or did you hear it in a story?”
– Moke Kapaana, Hawaiian language teacher
Students want to see primary sources
We have been making games for a decade, with dozens of educational games played by tens of thousands of students. When we asked students whether they preferred games using original historical sources (primary sources) or animation, we were surprised to find that a majority of elementary and middle school students were emphatic in that they preferred BOTH types of videos, graphic novels and other resources. I should add the caveat here that the majority of students we interviewed and a disproportionately high percentage of students who play our games are from states that have a significant proportion of Native American students, so, not a representative sample of the country, but representative of the schools we serve.
Primary sources are ideal for cross-curricular lessons
We particularly enjoyed making the game, You are Here: On the Lewis & Clark Trail because it gave us the opportunity to develop cross-curricular lessons, which are our favorite kind, including English language arts, social studies, math and science.
We assign students this writing prompt:
“If you were seeing an animal or plant for the first time, how would you let other people know what it was like?”
Here is the answer from one fourth-grader:
- Take a picture of its tracks
- Draw its tracks
- Measure the tracks
- Weigh it
- Draw it
- Describe how it feels. Describe how it looks. Describe how it walks (or hops)
- Describe how it swims (if it does)
- Describe how it flies (if it does)
- What color is it?
- Does it have a tail?
- Describe ears
- Describe its snout
- Does it have fur or feathers or skin?
- What does it eat?
- What does it do in the winter – does it fly south, change color?
Of course, you could describe it, as Lewis did, and compare it to other species that your listeners or readers did know. The students play the game and learn what Lewis said the first time he saw a steelhead, which he called a ‘salmon trout’.
“The salmon trout are seldom more than two feet in length they are narrow in proportion to their length, at least much more so than the salmon or red charr. The jaws are nearly of the same length, and are furnished with a series of small subulate straight teeth, not so long or as large as those of the salmon. The mouth is wide and the tongue is also furnished with some teeth. The fins are placed much like those of the salmon.”
Merriwether Lewis March 14th 1806
Students are often surprised to learn that an artifact, like this Lewis’ woodpecker specimen https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/lewisandclark/lewis-landc.html#71 is a primary source, and over 200 years later, can still be found in a museum.
HINT: A great place to start looking for resources on Lewis and Clark, both primary and secondary is here: https://guides.loc.gov/lewis-and-clark-natural-history/online-resources The Library of Congress Online Resources guide to Lewis and Clark . It led us to this extraordinarily helpful site at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, where we could search the journals by date, author or topic. https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/
Primary sources let students think like a historian
While many people think of research as only something scientists do, historical research can be just as challenging. Two of the history teachers in our first both teach in Los Angeles Unified School District and even though one is middle school and one secondary, though both like to create lessons around a central question. The one they posed using the Lewis and Clark game was:
“We hear that Sacajawea was an important person in the history of this country. How can we know about Sacajawea’s importance when we don’t have any first-hand accounts from her, no photos or paintings of her from the time she was alive?”
The Sacajawea level in the You are Here game uses direct quotes from both Lewis and Clark, including the following regarding her knowledge of medicinal plants.
Our sick men are much better today. Sacajawea gathered a quantity of the roots of a species of fennel which we found very agreeable food, the flavor of this root is not unlike annis seed, and they dispel the wind which the roots called Cows and quawmash are apt to create particularly the latter.
– Lewis, May 16, 1806
Her knowledge of botany also was important in providing a healthier diet for the expedition than just meat.
When we halted for dinner (Sacajawea) busied herself in searching for the wild artichokes which the mice collect and deposit in larger hoards. This operation she performed by penetrating the earth with a sharp stick about some small collections of drift wood. Her labour soon proved successful, and she procured a good quantity of these roots. The flavor of this root resembles that of the Jerusalem Artichoke, and the stalk of the weed which produces it is also similar, tho’ both the root and stalk are much smaller than the Jarusalem Artichoke. the root is white and of an ovate form, from one to three inches in length and usually about the size of a man’s finger. one stalk produces from two to four, and somitimes six of these roots.—
Merriwether Lewis, April 9 1805
This quote from Clark, about Sacajawea saving the papers and supplies of the expedition is probably her best known contribution to the expedition.
We proceeded on very well until about 6 o’Clock a squall of wind Struck our sail broad Side and turned the perogue nearly over, and in this Situation the Perogue remained until the sail was Cut down in which time She nearly filled with water— the articles which floated out was nearly all caught by Sacajawea who was in the rear. This accident had like to have cost us dearly; for in this perogue were embarked our papers, Instruments, books, medicine, a great proportion of our merchandize, and in short almost every article indispensably necessary to further the views, or insure the success of the enterprize in which, we are now launched to the distance of 2,200 miles.
– Clark, May 14, 1805
In teaching about Sacajawea and primary sources, the definition is emphasized that these were sources by someone present at the event at the time it happened, not just the person who actually performed an action.
Whether something is a primary source depends on how it is used
https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b46123
https://www.loc.gov/item/2022653973
In the Sacajawea level in You are Here, a character in a modern classroom asks if a statue can be a primary source. Her teacher responds that a statue can be a primary source that tells us what people thought was important at the time it was built. We know Sacajawea was important in 1805 because Clark said so. We know that people in 1905 and 1910, thought she was noteworthy because they built these statues.
Find lessons on our teacher site
As this is an in-progress project, not all of the lessons created by teachers are on the teacher site developed by 7 Generation Games, Growing Math. You can find six lessons here that teach specifically about primary sources, but many more have been submitted as part of our Co-designing Games to Teach Rural and Indigenous History project and will be uploaded to the site over the summer.
Another chance to join a Co-designing games workshop! We’ve teamed up with the CIRCLES alliance and will be offering the first workshop at Sitting Bull College on July 21st as part of their four-day curricular resources professional development. (Yes, you can also drop in online just for the workshop.)