Social Studies

At D39C, social studies has more of a global perspective from a young age. All students will learn about the people, places, ideas, and forces that have shaped the human story. Students will experience inquiry-based explorations of topics through the use of artifacts, art, architecture, simulations, drama, and primary source documents.

Overview History/SS CONTENT for Planing

Unifying Themes

These themes represent different lenses that can be applied to the teaching and learning of the Key Ideas and Conceptual Understandings in social studies. This work comes from the C3 Framework and is only the Disciplinary Focus. This is being used to rewrite State Standards for History/Social Studies by the year 2016.

Think Like a Historian Placemat

Themes at a Glance

K-8 Thematic Focus Areas based Dimension 2 of the C3 Framework. Italics are areas not currently addressed by the C3 Framework but are vital to understanding History and Social Studies.

Civics

  • Civic and Political Institutions

    • Power, Authority, Governance, and Reform

    • Use and Abuse of Power and Limitations of Power by Societies

  • Participation and Deliberation

  • Process, Rules, and Laws

    • Ways laws change

Economics

  • Economic Decision Making

    • Science and Technology fuels the Drive to Innovate

  • Exchange and Markets

    • Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems

  • The National Economy

  • The Global Economy

Geography

  • Geographic Representations

  • Human-Environment Interaction

    • Culture

    • Individual Development and Cultural Identity

    • Social Structures

  • Human Population: Spatial Patterns and Movements

    • Migration and Trade Allows for Cultural Diffusion

  • Global Interconnections

    • Global Connections and Exchange

History

  • Change, Continuity, and Context

  • Perspectives

  • Historical Sources and Evidence

  • Causation and Argumentation

C3 Themes at a Glance

(Click to Enlarge)

Complete K-8 Matrix of the College, Career, Civic Life Framework (C3)

Focus areas for the Alexandria Plan

K-8 Literature-Based History Using Common Core

U.S. Eras World Eras

"The study of history is a study of causes," wrote E. H. Carr in What is History? More than most other thinkers, historians have endeavored to explain why things happen. They are interested in the relationship between continuity and change.