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Third grade students are studying the Oregon trail in their Pioneer Unit at Clairbourn. Thanks to first-hand accounts from journals kept by about 2,500 pioneers, they have been learning how a “dream for a better life” captivated half-a-million people to plunge into a journey filled with extreme hardships and sacrifice. This mass migration also resulted in serious and devastating effects to the Native American population and the physical environment. (The Oregon Trail was a journey of 1,932 miles that extended from Missouri to Oregon. The Federal Government opened up the state of Oregon for people to claim land, and over 500,000 people set out to stake a claim. 50,000 people died along the way from drowning, disease, animal attack, bullet wounds, and even starvation.)
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