Grade 6 Social Studies CA Core Standards

Students explain how major events are related to one another in time.

Students construct various time lines of key events, people, and periods of the historical era they are studying.

Students use a variety of maps and documents to identify physical and cultural features of neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries and to explain the historical migration of people, expansion and disintegration of empires, and the growth of economic systems.

Students explain the central issues and problems from the past, placing people and events in a matrix of time and place.

Students understand and distinguish cause, effect, sequence, and correlation in historical events, including the long-and short-term causal relations.

Students explain the sources of historical continuity and how the combination of ideas and events explains the emergence of new patterns.

Students recognize the role of chance, oversight, and error in history.

Students recognize that interpretations of history are subject to change as new information is uncovered.

Students interpret basic indicators of economic performance and conduct cost-benefit analyses of economic and political issues.

Students frame questions that can be answered by historical study and research.

Students distinguish fact from opinion in historical narratives and stories.

Students distinguish relevant from irrelevant information, essential from incidental information, and verifiable from unverifiable information in historical narratives and stories.

Students assess the credibility of primary and secondary sources and draw sound conclusions from them.

Students detect the different historical points of view on historical events and determine the context in which the historical statements were made (the questions asked, sources used, author's perspectives).

Students describe what is known through archaeological studies of the early physical and cultural development of humankind from the Paleolithic era to the agricultural revolution.

Describe the hunter-gatherer societies, including the development of tools and the use of fire.

Identify the locations of human communities that populated the major regions of the world and describe how humans adapted to a variety of environments.

Discuss the climatic changes and human modifications of the physical environment that gave rise to the domestication of plants and animals and new sources of clothing and shelter.

Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Kush.

Locate and describe the major river systems and discuss the physical settings that supported permanent settlement and early civilizations.

Trace the development of agricultural techniques that permitted the production of economic surplus and the emergence of cities as centers of culture and power.

Understand the relationship between religion and the social and political order in Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Know the significance of Hammurabi's Code.

Discuss the main features of Egyptian art and architecture.

Describe the role of Egyptian trade in the eastern Mediterranean and Nile valley.

Understand the significance of Queen Hatshepsut and Ramses the Great.

Identify the location of the Kush civilization and describe its political, commercial, and cultural relations with Egypt.

Trace the evolution of language and its written forms.

Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the Ancient Hebrews.

Describe the origins and significance of Judaism as the first monothe­istic religion based on the concept of one God who sets down moral laws for humanity.

Identify the sources of the ethical teachings and central beliefs of Judaism (the Hebrew Bible, the Commentaries): belief in God, observance of law, practice of the concepts of righteousness and justice, and importance of study; and describe how the ideas of the Hebrew traditions are reflected in the moral and ethical traditions of Western civilization.

Explain the significance of Abraham, Moses, Naomi, Ruth, David, and Yohanan ben Zaccai in the development of the Jewish religion.

Discuss the locations of the settlements and movements of Hebrew peoples, including the Exodus and their movement to and from Egypt, and outline the significance of the Exodus to the Jewish and other people.

Discuss how Judaism survived and developed despite the continuing dispersion of much of the Jewish population from Jerusalem and the rest of Israel after the destruction of the second Temple in A.D. 70.

Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of Ancient Greece.

Discuss the connections between geography and the development of city-states in the region of the Aegean Sea, including patterns of trade and commerce among Greek city-states and within the wider Mediterranean region.

Trace the transition from tyranny and oligarchy to early democratic forms of government and back to dictatorship in ancient Greece, including the significance of the invention of the idea of citizenship (e.g., from Pericles' Funeral Oration).

State the key differences between Athenian, or direct, democracy and representative democracy.

Explain the significance of Greek mythology to the everyday life of people in the region and how Greek literature continues to permeate our literature and language today, drawing from Greek mythology and epics, such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and from Aesop's Fables.

Outline the founding, expansion, and political organization of the Persian Empire.

Compare and contrast life in Athens and Sparta, with emphasis on their roles in the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars.

Trace the rise of Alexander the Great and the spread of Greek culture eastward and into Egypt.

Describe the enduring contributions of important Greek figures in the arts and sciences (e.g., Hypatia, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Thucydides).

Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of India.

Locate and describe the major river system and discuss the physical setting that supported the rise of this civilization.

Discuss the significance of the Aryan invasions.

Explain the major beliefs and practices of Brahmanism in India and how they evolved into early Hinduism.

Outline the social structure of the caste system.

Know the life and moral teachings of the Buddha and how Buddhism spread in India, Ceylon, and Central Asia.

Describe the growth of the Maurya empire and the political and moral achievements of the emperor Asoka.

Discuss important aesthetic and intellectual traditions (e.g., Sanskrit literature, including the Bhagavad Gita; medicine; metallurgy; and mathematics, including Hindu-Arabic numerals and the zero).

Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of China.

Locate and describe the origins of Chinese civilization in the Huang-He Valley during the Shang Dynasty.

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.

Know about the life of Confucius and the fundamental teachings of Confucianism and Daoism.

Identify the political and cultural problems prevalent in the time of Confucius and how he sought to solve them.

List the policies and achievements of the emperor Shi Huangdi in unifying northern China under the Qin Dynasty.

Detail the political contributions of the Han Dynasty to the develop­ment of the imperial bureaucratic state and the expansion of the empire.

Cite the significance of the trans-Eurasian "silk roads" in the period of the Han Dynasty and Roman Empire and their locations.

Describe the diffusion of Buddhism northward to China during the Han Dynasty.

Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures during the development of Rome.

Identify the location and describe the rise of the Roman Republic, including the importance of such mythical and historical figures as Aeneas, Romulus and Remus, Cincinnatus, Julius Caesar, and Cicero.

Describe the government of the Roman Republic and its significance (e.g., written constitution and tripartite government, checks and balances, civic duty).

Identify the location of and the political and geographic reasons for the growth of Roman territories and expansion of the empire, including how the empire fostered economic growth through the use of currency and trade routes.

Discuss the influence of Julius Caesar and Augustus in Rome's transition from republic to empire.

Trace the migration of Jews around the Mediterranean region and the effects of their conflict with the Romans, including the Romans' restrictions on their right to live in Jerusalem.

Note the origins of Christianity in the Jewish Messianic prophecies, the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as described in the New Testament, and the contribution of St. Paul the Apostle to the definition and spread of Christian beliefs (e.g., belief in the Trinity, resurrection, salvation).

Describe the circumstances that led to the spread of Christianity in Europe and other Roman territories.

Discuss the legacies of Roman art and architecture, technology and science, literature, language, and law.

Research, Evidence, and Point of View

World History and Geography: Ancient Civilizations

Historical Interpretation

Historical and Social Sciences Analysis Skills

Chronological and Spatial Thinking

Early Humankind and the Development of Human Societies

How did the environment influence the migrations of early humans? How did early humans adapt to new environments and climate changes?

How did people live by the gathering and hunting way of life?

Why did some people develop agriculture and pastoral nomadism? What were the effects of these new ways of life?

The Early Civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Kush

From 4000 BCE to 500 BCE, how did contact, trade, and other links grow among the urban societies of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Kush, India, and the eastern Mediterranean?

How did civilizations—complex urban societies—develop in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Kush?

What environmental factors helped civilizations grow? What impact did civilizations have on the surrounding environment?

How did people’s lives change as states and empires took over these areas (increase in social differences, rule by monarchs, laws)?

The Ancient Israelites (Hebrews)

What were the beliefs and religious practices of the ancient Israelites? How did the religious practices of Judaism change and develop over time?

How did the environment, the history of the Israelites, and their interactions with other societies shape their religion?

How did early Judaism support individuals, rulers, and societies?

Ancient Greece

How did Greek trade, travel, and colonies, followed by the conquests of Alexander the Great and the spread of Hellenistic culture, affect increasing connections among regions in Afroeurasia?

How did the environment of the Greek peninsula and islands, the Anatolian coast, and the surrounding seas affect the development of Greek societies?

What were the differences in point of view and perspective between the Persians and the Greeks, and between Athenians and Spartans?

What were the political forms adopted by Greek urban societies? What were the achievements and limitations of Athenian democracy?

How did Greek thought (a cultural package of mythology, humanistic art, emphasis on reason and intellectual development, and historical, scientific, and literary forms) support individuals, states, and societies?

The Early Civilizations of India

How did the environment influence the emergence and decline of the Indus civilization?

How did religions of Ancient India, including, but not limited to early Hinduism, support individuals, rulers, and societies?

How did the religion of Buddhism support individuals, rulers, and societies?

During the Indus civilization, the Vedic period, and the Maurya Empire, how did the connections between the Indian subcontinent and other regions of Afroeurasia increase?

The Early Civilizations of China

How did the establishment of the Silk Road increase trade, the spread of Buddhism, and the connections between China and other regions of Afroeurasia?

How did the environment influence the development of civilization in China?

How did the philosophical system of Confucianism support individuals, rulers, and societies?

What factors helped China unify into a single state under the Han Dynasty? What social customs and government policies made the centralized state so powerful?

The Development of Rome

How did other societies (the Greeks, Hellenistic states, Han China, Parthian Persia) influence and affect the Romans?

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the Roman Republic? Why did the Roman Republic fall?

How did the Romans advance the concept of citizenship?

How did the environment influence the expansion of Rome and its integrated trade networks?

How did the major religious and philosophical systems (Judaism, Greek thought, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism) support individuals, rulers, and societies?

How did societies interact with each other? How did connections between societies increase over time?

How did the environment influence human migration, ancient ways of life, and the development of societies?

What were the early human ways of life (hunting and gathering, agriculture, civilizations, urban societies, states, and empires), and how did they change over time?