Origins

The Odyssey grew out of a series of meetings conducted in 1996 by a group of educators concerned with the lack of global awareness among youth, particularly in light of the increasing impact global issues have on the quality of life for people everywhere. The Odyssey was incorporated in September of 1997, followed by six months of laying the organization's foundation and investiging ways to use the Internet to more effectively educate youth on international issues. In that time:

• Six focus groups were held with teachers and youth, and experts in service learning and ed-tech
• Over thirty teachers and fifty students were consulted individually
• Over ten on-line educational programs were surveyed for strengths and weaknesses
• Relevant research papers and books were reviewed.

 
The World Trek - Some Quick Facts

• The World Trekkers have travelled over 35,000 miles and filed over 850 dispatches from over 40 countries.

• They spent six weeks in each of the ten major destination sites: Guatemala, Peru, Zimbabwe, Mali, Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Iran, India and China.

• The website receives over 30,000 hits per schoolday from over 1700 unique visitors, and has been accessed from over 90 countries.

• The World Trek has featured both live and on-demand video of interviews with three Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, two Right Livelihood Award winners, an Africa Prize Laureate, a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, and a former President of "Rhodesia."

• The World Trek hosted over 20 live chats with studnets from around the world, including from a Palestinian refugee camp, a tent city in Turkey following the earthquakes, and Tehran, Iran.

This fall The Odyssey will undertake the US Trek, a nine-month long trek through time and space with three purposes:

• To engage students in established US History curriculum more effectively than traditional materials and methodologies.

• To introduce students to diverse perspectives and critical issues too infrequently addressed in established curriculum.

• To engage students in service to their communities and general society.

The Itinerary

The US Trek itinerary directly supports National Education Standards and follows the same progression as the majority of US History classes in the US. 75% of teachers in these classes teach a one-year survey course. So the US Trek will also be a one-year survey, focusing on US History through the Civil War in the fall, and then exploring the United States in the 20th Century next spring. This will allow the maximum number of teachers to participate while enhancing their existing curriculum - not adding to it, a major inhibitor for overworked teachers. Over 10,000 teachers are expected to participate, reaching over 400,000 students. The itinerary is being developed with the cordination of over 50 professors of US History and Culture from all over the US, including UC Berkeley, Yale, Cornell, William and Mary, San Francisco State and others.

The following is a quick look at the general topics that will be covered and when:

I. In Search of American Roots

9/13 : First Team Update - The Diverse Histories of the US Trek Team

9/16 : The Geography of the United States

9/20 : Human Origins in the Americas

9/23 : Native Americans - Major Cultural Groups (pre-Contact)

9/27 : Native Americans - Major Developments and
Diverse Cultural Characteristics (pre-Contact)

9/30, 10/4 : The Early Explorers and the Colonists

10/7 : Lifestyles of the Not So Rich or Famous -
Indentured Servants, the Lower Class, and Women

10/11 : Slavery in the Colonies and Early African American Culture

10/14 : Native American Responses Up To the American Revolution

II. The Birth of the United States

10/18 : Revolutionary Flashpoints - Issues, People and Places

10/21 : The Unfolding of the American Victory

10/25 : Foundations of the US Government

III. Manifest Destiny

10/28 : US Expansion Through the Mid-1800's

11/1 : Native American Responses Through the Mid 1800's

11/4 : The Mexican-American War

11/8 : The Economic Machine and the Reaction

11/11 : The Age of Reform

11/15 : The Women's Rights Movement

IV. The Civil War and Reconstruction

11/18 : Life in the South

11/22 : Paths of Resistance and Rebellion

11/25 : Thanksgiving Break - No Update

11/29 : Life in the North

12/2 : The Abolitionists

12/6 : Flashpoints on the Road to the War - People, Places and Motivations

12/9 : The Civil War

12/13 : The Question of Emancipation and the End of the War

12/16 : Reconstruction Begun

12/20 : The Fall of Reconstruction

V. The United States Transformed

12/23, 1/3 : National Expansion, Industrialization, and Immigration

1/6 : Industrialization

1/10 : The Rise of Unions

1/13 : National Politics - The Interstate Commerce Act and Sherman Anti-Trust Act

Second Semester Themes TBA

For each of these broad themes, we have identified several specific topics to explore. For example, for the October 11 update, addressing "Slavery in the Colonies and Early African American Culture," the following topics will be addressed:

• The Songhai, Mali and Ghana Empires
  
  
• Slave Capture and Transportation
  
  
• Slavery in the Colonies - Conditions and Controls
  
  
• Slave Women
  
  
• Early Slave Resistance
  
  
• "Free" Black Life in the US
  
  
• Early African American Culture

• The African Burial Ground
  
  
• Underwater excavations of the Henrieta Marie, a sunken slave ship
  
  
• Somerset Place in Creswell, NC, to explore slave conditions
  
  
• Natchez, MS, site of the Natchez Rebellion
  
  
• Penn Community Center, St. Helena, Sea Islands, which has preserved vestiges of virtually independent black culture

The Teacher Zone

There is a separate teacher zone where the itinerary is laid out in detail, to allow teachers to plan ahead. Because all of the materials is archived, it can be used after the fact if a teacher's own agenda has them running behind the Trek, or in the future with other classes.  

So, Um, How Is This All Done?

The Odyssey is 100% volunteeer-run. Over 500 people have contributed their time and counsel to the effort, and a some of them have already shifted their attention completely to the US Trek. Add to that our corporate sponsors, who provide all of our in-kind needs, and you leave us with zero overhead and a very efficient organization. That said, it is still quite a technical and logistical challenge to pull this all together.

• Click here to check out a behind the scenes look at how the World Trek worked.