1) History of the United States and New York

Intermediate
2) World History
3) Geography

NY State Standards
4) Economics
5) Civics, Citizenship, and Government

 

1 History of the United States and New York
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points in the history of the United States and New York

1. The study of New York State and United States history requires an analysis of the development of American culture, its diversity and multicultural context, and the ways people are unified by many values, practices, and traditions.

 Students will:
 explore the meaning of American culture by identifying the key ideas, beliefs, and pat-terns
of behavior, and traditions that help define it and unite all Americans
 interpret the ideas, values, and beliefs contained in the Declaration of Independence and the New York State Constitution and United States Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other important historical documents.
2. Important ideas, social and cultural values, beliefs, and traditions from New York State and United States history illustrate the connections and interactions of people and events across time and from a variety of perspectives. Students will:
 describe the reasons for periodizing history in different ways.
 investigate key turning points in New York State and United States history and explain why these events or developments are significant.
 understand the relationship between the relative importance of United States domestic and
foreign policies over time.
 analyze the role played by the United States in international politics, past and present.
3. Study about the major social, political, economic, cultural, and religious developments in New York State and United States history involves learning about the important roles and contributions of individuals and groups. Students will:
 complete well-documented and historically accurate case studies about individuals and groups
who represent different ethnic, national, and religious groups, including Native American Indians, in New York State and the United States at different times and in different locations.
 gather and organize information about the important achievements and contributions of individuals and groups living in New York State and the United States.
 describe how ordinary people and famous historic figures in the local community, State, and the United States have advanced the fundamental democratic values, beliefs, and traditions expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the New York State and United States Constitutions, the Bill of Rights, and other important historic Documents.
 classify major developments into categories such as social, political, economic, geographic,
technological, scientific, cultural, or religious.
4. The skills of historical analysis include the ability to: explain the significance of historical evidence; weigh the importance, reliability, and validity of evidence; understand the concept of multiple causation; understand the importance of changing and competing interpretations of different historical developments. Students will:
 consider the sources of historic documents, narratives, or artifacts and evaluate their reliability
 understand how different experiences, beliefs, values, traditions, and motives cause individuals and groups to interpret historic events and issues from different perspectives.
 compare and contrast different interpretations of key events and issues in New York State and United States history and explain reasons for these different accounts.
 describe historic events through the eyes and experiences of those who were there. (Taken from National Standards for History for Grades K-4)

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2 World History
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points in world history and examine the broad sweep of history from a variety of perspectives.

1. The study of world history requires an understanding of world cultures and civilizations, including an analysis of important ideas, social and cultural values, beliefs, and traditions. This study also examines the human condition and the connections and interactions of people across time and space and the ways different people view the same event or issue from a variety of perspectives.

 Students will:
 know the social and economic characteristics, such as customs, traditions, childrearing practices, ways of making a living, education and socialization practices, gender roles, foods, and religious and spiritual beliefs that distinguish different cultures and civilizations.
 know some important historic events and developments of past civilizations.
 interpret and analyze documents and artifacts related to significant developments and events in world history.
2. Establishing timeframes, exploring different periodizations, examining themes across time and within cultures, and focusing on important turning points in world history help organize the study of world cultures and civilizations. Students will:
 develop timelines by placing important events and developments in world history in their correct chronological order.
 measure time periods by years, decades, centuries, and millennia. 
 study about major turning points in world history by investigating the causes and other factors that brought about change and the results of these changes.
3. Study of the major social, political, cultural, and religious developments in world history involves learning about the important roles and contributions of individuals and groups.

 

 Students will:
 investigate the roles and contributions of individuals and groups in relation to key social, political, cultural, and religious practices throughout world history.
 interpret and analyze documents and artifacts related to significant developments and events in world history.
 classify historic information according to the type of activity or practice: social/cultural, political, economic, geographic, scientific, technological, and historic.
4. The skills of historical analysis include the ability to investigate differing and competing interpretations of the theories of history, hypothesize about why interpretations change over time, explain the importance of historical evidence, and understand the concepts of change and continuity over time. Students will:
 explain the literal meaning of a historical passage or primary source document, identifying who was involved, what happened, where it happened, what events led up to these developments, and what consequences or outcomes followed (Taken from National Standards for World History).
 analyze different interpretations of important events and themes in world history and explain the various frames of reference expressed by different historians.
 view history through the eyes of those who witnessed key events and developments in world history by analyzing their literature, diary accounts, letters, artifacts, art, music, architectural drawings, and other documents.
 investigate important events and developments in world history by posing analytical questions, selecting relevant data, distinguishing fact from opinion, hypothesizing cause-and-effect relationships, testing these hypotheses, and forming conclusions.

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3 Geography
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their under-standing of the geography of the interdependent world in which we live-local, national, and global-including the distribution of people, places, and environments over the Earth's surface.

1. Geography can be divided into six essential elements which can be used to analyze important historic, geographic, economic, and environmental questions and issues. These six elements include: the world in spatial terms, places and regions, physical settings (including natural resources), human systems, environment and society, and the use of geography. (Adapted from The National Geography Standards, 1994: Geography for Life)

 Students will:
 map information about people, places, and environments.
 understand the characteristics, functions, and applications of maps, globes, aerial and other photographs, satellite-produced images, and models (Taken from National Geography Standards, 1994).
 investigate why people and places are located where they are located and what patterns can be perceived in these locations.
 describe the relationships between people and environments and the connections between people and places.
2. Geography requires the development and application of the skills of asking and answering geographic questions; analyzing theories of geography; and acquiring, organizing, and analyzing geographic information. (Adapted from: The National Geography Standards, 1994: Geography for Life) Students will:
 formulate geographic questions and define geographic issues and problems.
 use a number of research skills (e.g., computer databases, peri-odicals, census reports, maps, standard reference works, inter-views, surveys) to locate and gather geographical information about issues and problems. (Adapted from National Geography Standards, 1994)
 present geographic information in a variety of formats, including maps, tables, graphs, charts, diagrams, and computer-generated models.
 interpret geographic information by synthesizing data and developing conclusions and generalizations about geographic issues and problems.

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4 Economics
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their under-standing of how the United States and other societies develop economic systems and associated institutions to allocate scarce resources, how major decision-making units function in the U.S. and other national economies, and how an economy solves the scarcity problem through market and nonmarket mechanisms.

1. The study of economics requires an understanding of major economic concepts and systems, the principles of economic decision making, and the interdependence of economies and economic systems throughout the world.

 Students will:
 explain how societies and nations attempt to satisfy their basic needs and wants by utilizing scarce capital, natural, and human resources.
 define basic economic concepts such as scarcity, supply and demand, markets, opportunity costs, resources, productivity, economic growth, and systems.
 understand how scarcity requires people and nations to make choices which involve costs and future considerations.
 understand how people in the United States and throughout the world are both producers and consumers of goods and services.
 investigate how people in the United States and throughout the world answer the three fundamental economic questions and solve basic economic problems.
 describe how traditional, command, market, and mixed economies answer the three fundamental economic questions.
 explain how nations throughout the world have joined with one another to promote economic
development and growth.
2. Economics requires the development and application of the skills needed to make informed and well-reasoned economic decisions in daily and national life. Students will:
 identify and collect economic information from standard reference works, newspapers, periodicals, computer databases, textbooks, and other primary and secondary sources.
 organize and classify economic information by distinguishing relevant from irrelevant information, placing ideas in chronological order, and selecting appropriate labels for data.
 evaluate economic data by differentiating fact from opinion and identifying frames of reference.
 develop conclusions about economic issues and problems by creating broad statements which summarize findings and solutions.
 present economic information by using media and other appropriate visuals such as tables, charts, and graphs to communicate ideas and conclusions.

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5 Civics, Citizenship, and Government
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their under-standing of the necessity for establishing governments; the governmental system of the U.S. and other nations; the U.S. Constitution; the basic civic values of American constitutional democracy; and the roles, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship, including avenues of participation.

1. The study of civics, citizenship, and government involves learning about political systems; the purposes of government and civic life; and the differing assumptions held by people across time and place regarding power, authority, governance, and law. (Adapted from The National Standards for Civics and Government, 1994)

Students will:
 analyze how the values of a nation affect the guarantee of human rights and make provisions for human needs.
 consider the nature and evolution of constitutional democracies.
 explore the rights of citizens in other parts of the hemisphere and determine how they are similar to and different from the rights of American citizens.
 analyze the sources of a nation's values as embodied in its constitution, statutes, and important court cases.
2. The state and federal governments established by the Constitutions of the United States and the State of New York embody basic civic values (such as justice, honesty, self-discipline, due process, equality, majority rule with respect for minority rights, and respect for self, others, and property), principles, and practices and establish a system of shared and limited government. (Adapted from The National Standards for Civics and Government, 1994) Students will:
 understand how civic values reflected in United States and New York State Constitutions have been implemented through laws and practices.
 understand that the New York State Constitution, along with a number of other documents, served as a model for the development of the United States Constitution.
 compare and contrast the development and evolution of the constitutions of the United States and New York State.
 define federalism and describe the powers granted the national and state governments by the United States Constitution.
 value the principles, ideals, and core values of the American democratic system based upon the premises of human dignity, liberty, justice, and equality.
 understand how the United States and New York State Constitutions support majority rule but also protect the rights of the minority.
3. Central to civics and citizenship is an understanding of the roles of the citizen within American constitutional democracy and the scope of a citizen's rights and responsibilities. Students will:
 explain what citizenship means in a democratic society, how citizenship is defined in the Constitution and other laws of the land, and how the definition of citizenship has changed in the United States and New York State over time.
 understand that the American legal and political systems guarantee and protect the rights of citizens and assume that citizens will hold and exercise certain civic values and fulfill certain civic responsibilities.
 discuss the role of an informed citizen in today's changing world. 
 explain how Americans are citizens of their states and of the United States.
4. The study of civics and citizenship requires the ability to probe ideas and assumptions, ask and answer analytical questions, take a skeptical attitude toward questionable arguments, evaluate evidence, formulate rational conclusions, and develop and refine participatory skills. Students will:
 participate as informed citizens in the political justice system and processes of the United States, including voting.
 evaluate, take, and defend positions on what the fundamental values and principles of American political life are and their importance to the maintenance of constitutional democracy. (Adapted from The National Standards for Civics and Government, 1994)
 take, defend, and evaluate positions about attitudes that facilitate thoughtful and effective participation in public affairs.
 consider the need to respect the rights of others, to respect others' points of view (Adapted from The National Standards for Civics and Government, 1996)
 participate in school/class-room/community activities that focus on an issue or problem.
 prepare a plan of action that defines an issue or problem, suggests alternative solutions or courses of action, evaluates the consequences for each alternative solution or course of action, prioritizes the solutions based on established criteria, and proposes an action plan to address the issue or to resolve the problem.
 explain how democratic principles have been used in resolving an issue or problem.

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