Ancient Civilizations
Students will begin the year learning about Historical Thinking Skills and will look at and evaluate eyewitness testimony and they will ultimately have to decide who should be suspended for a lunchroom fight and state the evidence as to why. We will then begin our first unit and learn about the geography of northern Africa and the Middle East. They will learn to think like social scientists as they evaluate several artifacts and lay the foundation for our year of ancient history.
Medieval History
We will begin the year by watching a TED talk, The Danger of a Single Story, after which students will write reflections about the talk. We will review our historical thinking skills and evaluate several sources. We will then begin our first unit. Students will analyze the geography of Europe in medieval times and label areas where our unit will cover. Students will then learn about the fall of Rome and what aspects led to the fall of Rome. We will begin to learn about the legacy Rome left behind and how we still see these legacies in our world today. Many of our units will challenge students to look at our world today for the legacies of the regions of the world we learn about.
U.S. History
After reviewing our historical thinking skills we will move on to the first geography unit and look at the United States during the time of our first Americans. Students will then hypothesize the geographic origins of Indigenous people's artifacts to explore how the first Americans in eight cultural regions adapted to their environments.
