Fifth Grade: Foundations of U.S. Government & Civic Engagement

• Develop vocabulary strategies to understand:

• Landforms, geographic features, absolute and relative location, etc.

• Associations of past, present, future, and long ago (e.g., BCE and CE).

• While studying different groups, societies, and cultures, use informational text structures (cause/effect, compare/contrast, sequence, etc.) to understand social studies content.

• Describe how a narrator's or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described and the views they represent.

• Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about a subject knowledgeably.

• Use and analyze primary and secondary sources for reconstructing the past, properly cite sources, and create a bibliography.

• Read and construct simple timelines.

• Explore the cultures of early Americans, building on the foundations learned in fourth grade, in order to understand the context of the early colonial era leading up to the American Revolution. Learners will also understand how and why early colonists founded a republican form of government. Instructors should consider incorporating the following topics so learners will begin to develop an understanding of:

  • • Culture expressed through language, stories, folktales, music, and artistic creations. Learners will apply that understanding to the historical context of early United States history, as compared to today.

Examine group and institutional influences (such as religious beliefs, laws, and peer pressure) on people, events, and elements of culture.

Develop an understanding of human-environment interactions in the historical context of the early United States as compared to today.

• • What types of homes and structures have people built?

  • What environmental factors led to those choices?

  • What impacts have resulted from those developments?

Compare and contrast different stories or accounts about past events, people, places, or situations, and identify how these contribute to our understanding of the past.

Give examples of how experiences may be interpreted differently by people from diverse cultural perspectives and frames of reference.

• • Identify attitudes, values, and behaviors of people in different historical contexts (e.g., What values of the time period justified denying women the right to vote?).

  • Identify and describe examples of tensions between and among individuals, groups, or institutions, and how belonging to more than one group can cause internal conflicts.

  • Identify and describe example of tensions between individual’s beliefs and government policies and laws.

• Learn about Indigenous land acknowledgements as a recognition of the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the land, historically and current.

• Investigate how events, people, and ideas have shaped the United States and/or the world. Consider exploring the following topics:

  • • The events of early United States history that led to our current system of government (Mayflower Compact, Iroquois Confederacy, etc.)

    • The differences between historic and present day objects and their usage changing over time (e.g., comparing modes of transportation used in past and present exploration in order to evaluate the impact and the events of those changes).

    • Ways that life in the United States and/or the world has both changed and stayed the same over time, and explain why these changes have occurred (e.g., comparing modes of transportation used in past and present exploration in order to evaluate the impact and the events of those changes).

• Work independently and cooperatively to accomplish goals.

• Describe and define the rights, principles, and responsibilities of citizenship in the United States. Instructors should consider incorporating the following content:

  • • The right to vote, responsibility to obey the laws, and the actions citizens take to influence public policy.

    • Roles as learned behavior patterns in group situations, such as student, family member, peer play group member, or club member.

    • Personal points of view on issues that affect themselves and society, and explain an opposing point of view (bullies, victims, witnesses, voting age, smoking, violence on TV, etc.).

• Identify problems and propose solutions in the local community, state, nation, or the world. Instructors should consider exploring the following topics so learners may begin to understand their role as agents of change:

  • • How groups and institutions work to meet individual needs and promote the common good, and where they fail to do so.

    • Alternative uses of resources in the home, school, community, region, and beyond.

• Concepts of fairness, equity, and justice.

  • • Economic concepts in response to local economic issues (e.g., reduce the flow of garbage).

    • Instances in which changes in values, beliefs, and attitudes have resulted from new scientific and technological knowledge, such as conservation of resources and awareness of chemicals harmful to the environment.

• Give examples and describe the importance of cultural unity and diversity within and across groups.

• Describe personal identity.

Explain and demonstrate the role of money in everyday life, distinguish between needs and wants, and consider the influence of incentives, values, traditions, and habits on economic decisions.

Examine the relationships and tensions between personal wants and needs and various global concerns, such as use of imported oil, land use, and environmental protections.

Review the concept that scarcity and choice determine our economic demand.

Identify examples of the various institutions that make up economic systems (e.g., families, workers, banks, labor unions, government agencies, small businesses, and large corporations).

Describe how we depend upon workers with specialized jobs, and the ways in which they contribute to the production and exchange of goods and services.