Social Studies 8

Unit 1: Renaissance Europe: Origins of a Western Worldview (September - November)

In this unit, students will examine, critically, the factors that shaped the worldview evolving in western Europe during the Renaissance by exploring and reflecting upon the following questions and issues:

• What was the Renaissance?
• How did the Renaissance spark the growth and exchange of ideas and knowledge across Europe (i.e., astronomy, mathematics, science, politics, religion, arts)?
• How did the physical geography of Renaissance Europe affect trade and competition among European countries?
• How did increased trade lead to the emergence of powerful city-states (i.e., Florence, Venice, Genoa)?
• In what ways did thinkers and philosophers influence society in the development of a humanist worldview during the Renaissance?
• In what ways were the Age of Discovery and the rise of imperialism expressions of an expansionist worldview?
• In what ways did exploration and intercultural contact during the Renaissance affect the citizenship and identity of Europeans?

Through this specific study of the Renaissance, students will also be able to answers these bigger questions

• The difference between point of view, perspective and worldview
• The factors that effect perspectives and worldviews
• How and why perspectives and worldviews change

Unit 2: Japan: From Isolation to Adaptation (November - January)

Unit Summary: Through an examination of Japan, students will demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of the ways in which beliefs, values and knowledge shape worldviews and contribute to a society’s isolation or adaptation. (Alberta Education, 2017)

Unit Objectives:

• analyze the effects of cultural isolation during the Edo period
• analyze the effects that rapid adaptation had on traditionally isolated Japan during the Meiji period

Unit 3: Worldviews in Conflict: Aztecs and the Spanish (February to June)