Lesson plans by Holly Hurd and Dixie Hayes with Joel Eastman

          These lesson plans are designed for Middle School students, grades 6-8, and focus on content from the book Settling the Maine Wilderness, by Walter Macdougall, about settlement of the interior regions of Maine in the years following the American Revolution. They are particularly well-suited to Maine Studies classes and address a variety of broad themes such as settlement, economics, statehood, community organizations, transportation, land use, and mapping. The book relates the contributions of Moses Greenleaf, Maine’s first mapmaker, and describes his role in furthering the development of Maine in the early nineteenth century. Greenleaf mapped and surveyed parts of the wilderness regions of Maine, and he also collected and published geographical information to help promote settlement of the state. He was a visionary who foresaw, and attempted to address, the challenges inherent in people living and thriving in Maine.

          These lessons are meant to make the information in Macdougall’s book accessible to schoolchildren since Greenleaf’s life and activities exemplify historical themes relevant for students learning about their state, or for any student of history. An accompanying illustrated booklet, The Moses Greenleaf Primer, available through the Osher Map Library as a supplement to these lessons, describes the ideas in Settling the Maine Wilderness in a format that is engaging for young students. The lesson plans have been field tested by eight different groups of schoolchildren from 5^th to 8^th grades, and the response has been very positive.