When Lewis and Clark traveled across the American continent exploring the Louisiana Purchase 200 years ago, there was very little that actually set them apart from the indigenous peoples they met along the way. Their clothing was different in subtle ways. All wore buckskins and animal hides. Their technologies were slightly different. Lewis and Clark were armed with rifles while the indigenous peoples were armed with bows and arrows. Like the indigenous peoples, Lewis and Clark and the members of their expedition were skilled at survival in the wild based on knowledge of the natural world, its materials and working qualities. They crafted boats and shelter, fished and hunted for provisions, learned essential language skills for communicating with the people they met and held steadfast to a mission of scientific interest and national purpose. An observer from modern times hypothetically dropped into Lewis and Clark's encampment of 200 years ago today would feel as completely estranged and incompetent as if he or she were abandoned to a tribe in the darkest jungles of South America today.

We have a fascination with the concept of survival. We see it in the popularity of movies like Will Smith's I am Legend, Tom Hanks' Cast Away, and the television "reality" show Survivor. The idea of each is that the main character with whom we identify is able in some way to persist, or even thrive in the face of incomprehensible wilderness.

Today's children (and adults) are sheltered from physical reality, deprived of understanding of how things are made and how things grow. We are incapable of survival without the shelter of our homes, the distraction of our mass media, and the regular delivery of processed foods and mass-manufactured merchandise.

Can you see why it might at some point be important that we offer our children the opportunity to gain confidence and sense of mastery of the material world that comes from making things, building and planting gardens, exploring the outdoors and becoming familiar with its wonders?

Things may go on and on for our civilization. Our TVs may always work and distract us. The evolution of technology to expand our control of our world may go on and on. Or they may not. I'm not wanting to frighten you, but to encourage you to hedge your bets. Use your hands. Develop skills. Make things. And make no mistake. The skills you develop are carried like a great quest, a mission to the far side of an unknown continent, a future and survival that will depend on all human resources, not just those of the mind, but of the hand as well.