Stories of America — Season 1, Episode 15: Lewis and Clark
Kids • 15 min • 1 season, 32 episodes
Episode synopsis
This episode follows the famous expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark as they journey across the vast, unmapped lands of the American West. Through simple narration and reenactments, children learn why President Jefferson sent the explorers, how they prepared for the long trip, and what they discovered along the way. The program highlights their encounters with new landscapes, wildlife, and Native nations, as well as the vital help of Sacagawea. Designed for classroom learning, the episode shows how the expedition expanded America’s understanding of its growing territory.
About Stories of America
The interconnectedness of all things is a fundamental part of reading motivation projects. Although GPN's Reading Rainbow claims to have invented that idea, Stories of America with host Ann McGregor got there first. It was 1976, America's bicentennial year, and WVIZ-TV of Cleveland wanted something more out of a series aimed at delivering American history, They decided to combine history with reading. The result was Stories of America. Hosting was the familiar face of Ann McGregor, who had enlivened Picture Book Park and Tilson's Bookshop some two years earlier. Stories of America resembled more of a story reading than a history lesson, but it also introduced other elements that became standard Reading Rainbow procedure. There were occasional film sequences, dramatizations, and even an animation. All told, the 32-part Stories of America series ran some 14 years on WVIZ-TV. The station brought the shows back in 1998, and it would be the only WVIZ instructional telev