Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of India. 1. Locate and describe the major river system and discuss the physical setting that sup ported the rise of this civilization.
2. Discuss the significance of the Aryan invasions.
3. Explain the major beliefs and practices of Brahmanism in India and how they evolved into early Hinduism.
4. Outline the social structure of the caste system.
5. Know the life and moral teachings of Buddha and how Buddhism spread in India, Ceylon, and Central Asia.
6. Describe the growth of the Maurya empire and the political and moral achievements of the emperor Asoka.
7. Discuss important aesthetic and intellectual traditions (e.g., Sanskrit literature, includ ing the Bhagavad Gita; medicine; metallurgy; and mathematics, including HinduArabic numerals and the zero).
Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of China. 1. Locate and describe the origins of Chinese civilization in the Huang-He Valley during the Shang Dynasty.
2. Explain the geographic features of China that made governance and the spread of ideas and goods difficult and served to isolate the country from the rest of the world.
3. Know about the life of Confucius and the fundamental teachings of Confucianism and Taoism.
4. Identify the political and cultural problems prevalent in the time of Confucius and how he sought to solve them.
5. List the policies and achievements of the emperor Shi Huangdi in unifying northern China under the Qin Dynasty.
6. Detail the political contributions of the Han Dynasty to the development of the impe rial bureaucratic state and the expansion of the empire.
7. Cite the significance of the trans-Eurasian “silk roads” in the period of the Han Dy nasty and Roman Empire and their locations.
8. Describe the diffusion of Buddhism northward to China during the Han Dynasty.
subcontinent, Himalayas, Indus River valley, monsoons, Harappan Civilization, planned cities, Aryans, caste, Brahmins, Vedas, Hinduism, reincarnation, karma, Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, nirvana, dharma, Magadha, Asoka, golden age
Yangtze, Huang He, North China Plain, oracle bones, pictographs, dynastic cycles, Mandate of Heaven, philosophy, Legalism, Confucianism, analects, filial piety, Daoism, Dao, Yin and Yang, Shi Huangdi, The Great Wall, Han Dynasty, Silk Road, trans-Eurasian, cultural diffusion