California K–6 social studies standards

Follow rules, such as sharing and taking turns, and know the consequences of breaking them.

Learn examples of honesty, courage, determination, individual responsibility, and patriotism in American and world history from stories and folklore.

Know beliefs and related behaviors of characters in stories from times past and understand the consequences of the characters' actions.

Students recognize national and state symbols and icons such as the national and state flags, the bald eagle, and the Statue of Liberty.

Students match simple descriptions of work that people do and the names of related jobs at the school, in the local community, and from historical accounts.

Determine the relative locations of objects using the terms near/far, left/right, and behind/in front.

Distinguish between land and water on maps and globes and locate general areas referenced in historical legends and stories.

Identify traffic symbols and map symbols (e.g., those for land, water, roads, cities).

Construct maps and models of neighborhoods, incorporating such structures as police and fire stations, airports, banks, hospitals, supermarkets, harbors, schools, homes, places of worship, and transportation lines.

Demonstrate familiarity with the school's layout, environs, and the jobs people do there.

Students put events in temporal order using a calendar, placing days, weeks, and months in proper order.

Identify the purposes of, and the people and events honored in, commemorative holidays, including the human struggles that were the basis for the events (e.g., Thanksgiving, Independence Day, Washington's and Lincoln's Birthdays, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day).

Know the triumphs in American legends and historical accounts through the stories of such people as Pocahontas, George Washing-ton, Booker T. Washington, Daniel Boone, and Benjamin Franklin.

Understand how people lived in earlier times and how their lives would be different today (e.g., getting water from a well, growing food, making clothing, having fun, forming organizations, living by rules and laws).

Students place key events and people of the historical era they are studying in a chronological sequence and within a spatial context; they interpret time lines.

Students correctly apply terms related to time, including past, present, future, decade, century, and generation.

Students explain how the present is connected to the past, identifying both similarities and differences between the two, and how some things change over time and some things stay the same.

Students use map and globe skills to determine the absolute locations of places and interpret information available through a map's or globe's legend, scale, and symbolic representations.

Students judge the significance of the relative location of a place (e.g., proximity to a harbor, on trade routes) and analyze how relative advantages or disadvantages can change over time.

Students summarize the key events of the era they are studying and explain the historical contexts of those events.

Students identify the human and physical characteristics of the places they are studying and explain how those features form the unique character of those places.

Students identify and interpret the multiple causes and effects of historical events.

Students conduct cost-benefit analyses of historical and current events.

Students differentiate between primary and secondary sources.

Students pose relevant questions about events they encounter in historical documents, eyewitness accounts, oral histories, letters, diaries, artifacts, photographs, maps, artworks, and architecture.

Students distinguish fact from fiction by comparing documentary sources on historical figures and events with fictionalized characters and events.

Understand the rule-making process in a direct democracy (everyone votes on the rules) and in a representative democracy (an elected group of people makes the rules), giving examples of both systems in their classroom, school, and community.

Understand the elements of fair play and good sportsmanship, respect for the rights and opinions of others, and respect for rules by which we live, including the meaning of the "Golden Rule."

Locate on maps and globes their local community, California, the United States, the seven continents, and the four oceans.

Compare the information that can be derived from a three-dimensional model to the information that can be derived from a picture of the same location.

Construct a simple map, using cardinal directions and map symbols.

Describe how location, weather, and physical environment affect the way people live, including the effects on their food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and recreation.

Recite the Pledge of Allegiance and sing songs that express American ideals (e.g., "America").

Understand the significance of our national holidays and the heroism and achievements of the people associated with them.

Identify American symbols, landmarks, and essential documents, such as the flag, bald eagle, Statue of Liberty, U.S. Constitution, and Declaration of Independence, and know the people and events associated with them.

Examine the structure of schools and communities in the past.

Study transportation methods of earlier days.

Recognize similarities and differences of earlier generations in such areas as work (inside and outside the home), dress, manners, stories, games, and festivals, drawing from biographies, oral histories, and folklore.

Recognize the ways in which they are all part of the same community, sharing principles, goals, and traditions despite their varied ancestry; the forms of diversity in their school and community; and the benefits and challenges of a diverse population.

Understand the ways in which American Indians and immigrants have helped define Californian and American culture.

Compare the beliefs, customs, ceremonies, traditions, and social practices of the varied cultures, drawing from folklore.

Understand the concept of exchange and the use of money to purchase goods and services.

Identify the specialized work that people do to manufacture, transport, and market goods and services and the contributions of those who work in the home.

Trace the history of a family through the use of primary and secondary sources, including artifacts, photographs, interviews, and documents.

Compare and contrast their daily lives with those of their parents, grandparents, and/or guardians.

Place important events in their lives in the order in which they occurred (e.g., on a time line or storyboard).

Locate on a simple letter-number grid system the specific locations and geographic features in their neighborhood or community (e.g., map of the classroom, the school).

Label from memory a simple map of the North American continent, including the countries, oceans, Great Lakes, major rivers, and mountain ranges. Identify the essential map elements: title, legend, directional indicator, scale, and date.

Locate on a map where their ancestors live(d), telling when the family moved to the local community and how and why they made the trip.

Compare and contrast basic land use in urban, suburban, and rural environments in California.

Explain how the United States and other countries make laws, carry out laws, determine whether laws have been violated, and punish wrongdoers.

Describe the ways in which groups and nations interact with one another to try to resolve problems in such areas as trade, cultural contacts, treaties, diplomacy, and military force.

Describe food production and consumption long ago and today, including the roles of farmers, processors, distributors, weather, and land and water resources.

Understand the role and interdependence of buyers (consumers) and sellers (producers) of goods and services.

Understand how limits on resources affect production and consumption (what to produce and what to consume).

Students understand the importance of individual action and character and explain how heroes from long ago and the recent past have made a difference in others' lives (e.g., from biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Louis Pasteur, Sitting Bull, George Washington Carver, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, Jackie Robinson, Sally Ride).

Identify geographical features in their local region (e.g., deserts, mountains, valleys, hills, coastal areas, oceans, lakes).

Trace the ways in which people have used the resources of the local region and modified the physical environment (e.g., a dam constructed upstream changed a river or coastline).

Describe national identities, religious beliefs, customs, and various folklore traditions.

Discuss the ways in which physical geography, including climate, influenced how the local Indian nations adapted to their natural environment (e.g., how they obtained food, clothing, tools).

Describe the economy and systems of government, particularly those with tribal constitutions, and their relationship to federal and state governments.

Discuss the interaction of new settlers with the already established Indians of the region.

Research the explorers who visited here, the newcomers who settled here, and the people who continue to come to the region, including their cultural and religious traditions and contributions.

Describe the economies established by settlers and their influence on the present-day economy, with emphasis on the importance of private property and entrepreneurship.

Trace why their community was established, how individuals and families contributed to its founding and development, and how the community has changed over time, drawing on maps, photographs, oral histories, letters, newspapers, and other primary sources.

Determine the reasons for rules, laws, and the U.S. Constitution; the role of citizenship in the promotion of rules and laws; and the consequences for people who violate rules and laws.

Discuss the importance of public virtue and the role of citizens, including how to participate in a classroom, in the community, and in civic life.

Know the histories of important local and national landmarks, symbols, and essential documents that create a sense of community among citizens and exemplify cherished ideals (e.g., the U.S. flag, the bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty, the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Capitol).

Understand the three branches of government, with an emphasis on local government.

Describe the ways in which California, the other states, and sovereign American Indian tribes contribute to the making of our nation and participate in the federal system of government.

Describe the lives of American heroes who took risks to secure our freedoms (e.g., Anne Hutchinson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr.).

Describe the ways in which local producers have used and are using natural resources, human resources, and capital resources to produce goods and services in the past and the present.

Understand that some goods are made locally, some elsewhere in the United States, and some abroad.

Understand that individual economic choices involve trade-offs and the evaluation of benefits and costs.

Discuss the relationship of students' "work" in school and their personal human capital.

Explain and use the coordinate grid system of latitude and longitude to determine the absolute locations of places in California and on Earth.

Distinguish between the North and South Poles; the equator and the prime meridian; the tropics; and the hemispheres, using coordinates to plot locations.

Identify the state capital and describe the various regions of Califor°nia, including how their characteristics and physical environments (e.g., water, landforms, vegetation, climate) affect human activity.

Identify the locations of the Pacific Ocean, rivers, valleys, and mountain passes and explain their effects on the growth of towns.

Use maps, charts, and pictures to describe how communities in California vary in land use, vegetation, wildlife, climate, population density, architecture, services, and transportation.

Discuss the major nations of California Indians, including their geographic distribution, economic activities, legends, and religious beliefs; and describe how they depended on, adapted to, and modi°fied the physical environment by cultivation of land and use of sea resources.

Identify the early land and sea routes to, and European settlements in, California with a focus on the exploration of the North Pacific (e.g., by Captain James Cook, Vitus Bering, Juan Cabrillo), noting especially the importance of mountains, deserts, ocean currents, and wind patterns.

Describe the Spanish exploration and colonization of California, including the relationships among soldiers, missionaries, and Indians (e.g., Juan Crespi, Junipero Serra, Gaspar de Portola).

Describe the mapping of, geographic basis of, and economic factors in the placement and function of the Spanish missions; and understand how the mission system expanded the influence of Spain and Catholicism throughout New Spain and Latin America.

Describe the daily lives of the people, native and nonnative, who occupied the presidios, missions, ranchos, and pueblos.

Discuss the role of the Franciscans in changing the economy of California from a hunter-gatherer economy to an agricultural economy.

Describe the effects of the Mexican War for Independence on Alta California, including its effects on the territorial boundaries of North America.

Discuss the period of Mexican rule in California and its attributes, including land grants, secularization of the missions, and the rise of the rancho economy.

Identify the locations of Mexican settlements in California and those of other settlements, including Fort Ross and Sutter's Fort.

Compare how and why people traveled to California and the routes they traveled (e.g., James Beckwourth, John Bidwell, John C. Fremont, Pio Pico).

Analyze the effects of the Gold Rush on settlements, daily life, politics, and the physical environment (e.g., using biographies of John Sutter, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, Louise Clapp).

Study the lives of women who helped build early California (e.g., Biddy Mason).

Discuss how California became a state and how its new government differed from those during the Spanish and Mexican periods.

Understand the story and lasting influence of the Pony Express, Overland Mail Service, Western Union, and the building of the transcontinental railroad, including the contributions of Chinese workers to its construction.

Explain how the Gold Rush transformed the economy of California, including the types of products produced and consumed, changes in towns (e.g., Sacramento, San Francisco), and economic conflicts between diverse groups of people.

Discuss immigration and migration to California between 1850 and 1900, including the diverse composition of those who came; the countries of origin and their relative locations; and conflicts and accords among the diverse groups (e.g., the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act).

Describe rapid American immigration, internal migration, settlement, and the growth of towns and cities (e.g., Los Angeles).

Discuss the effects of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and World War II on California.

Describe the development and locations of new industries since the nineteenth century, such as the aerospace industry, electronics industry, large-scale commercial agriculture and irrigation projects, the oil and automobile industries, communications and defense industries, and important trade links with the Pacific Basin.

Trace the evolution of California's water system into a network of dams, aqueducts, and reservoirs.

Describe the history and development of California's public education system, including universities and community colleges.

Analyze the impact of twentieth-century Californians on the nation's artistic and cultural development, including the rise of the entertainment industry (e.g., Louis B. Mayer, Walt Disney, John Steinbeck, Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, John Wayne).

Discuss what the U.S. Constitution is and why it is important (i.e., a written document that defines the structure and purpose of the U.S. government and describes the shared powers of federal, state, and local governments).

Understand the purpose of the California Constitution, its key principles, and its relationship to the U.S. Constitution.

Describe the similarities (e.g., written documents, rule of law, consent of the governed, three separate branches) and differences (e.g., scope of jurisdiction, limits on government powers, use of the military) among federal, state, and local governments.

Explain the structures and functions of state governments, including the roles and responsibilities of their elected officials.

Describe the components of California's governance structure (e.g., cities and towns, Indian rancherias and reservations, counties, school districts).

Describe how geography and climate influenced the way various nations lived and adjusted to the natural environment, including locations of villages, the distinct structures that they built, and how they obtained food, clothing, tools, and utensils.

Describe their varied customs and folklore traditions.

Explain their varied economies and systems of government.

Describe the entrepreneurial characteristics of early explorers (e.g., Christopher Columbus, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado) and the technological developments that made sea exploration by latitude and longitude possible (e.g., compass, sextant, astrolabe, seaworthy ships, chronometers, gunpowder).

Explain the aims, obstacles, and accomplishments of the explorers, sponsors, and leaders of key European expeditions and the reasons Europeans chose to explore and colonize the world (e.g., the Spanish Reconquista, the Protestant Reformation, the Counter Reformation).

Trace the routes of the major land explorers of the United States, the distances traveled by explorers, and the Atlantic trade routes that linked Africa, the West Indies, the British colonies, and Europe.

Locate on maps of North and South America land claimed by Spain, France, England, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Russia.

Describe the competition among the English, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Indian nations for control of North America.

Describe the cooperation that existed between the colonists and Indians during the 1600s and 1700s (e.g., in agriculture, the fur trade, military alliances, treaties, cultural interchanges).

Examine the conflicts before the Revolutionary War (e.g., the Pequot and King Philip's Wars in New England, the Powhatan Wars in Virginia, the French and Indian War).

Discuss the role of broken treaties and massacres and the factors that led to the Indians' defeat, including the resistance of Indian nations to encroachments and assimilation (e.g., the story of the Trail of Tears).

Describe the internecine Indian conflicts, including the competing claims for control of lands (e.g., actions of the Iroquois, Huron, Lakota [Sioux]).

Explain the influence and achievements of significant leaders of the time (e.g., John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, Chief Tecumseh, Chief Logan, Chief John Ross, Sequoyah).

Understand the influence of location and physical setting on the founding of the original 13 colonies, and identify on a map the locations of the colonies and of the American Indian nations already inhabiting these areas.

Identify the major individuals and groups responsible for the founding of the various colonies and the reasons for their founding (e.g., John Smith, Virginia; Roger Williams, Rhode Island; William Penn, Pennsylvania; Lord Baltimore, Maryland; William Bradford, Plymouth; John Winthrop, Massachusetts).

Describe the religious aspects of the earliest colonies (e.g., Puritanism in Massachusetts, Anglicanism in Virginia, Catholicism in Maryland, Quakerism in Pennsylvania).

Identify the significance and leaders of the First Great Awakening, which marked a shift in religious ideas, practices, and allegiances in the colonial period, the growth of religious toleration, and free exercise of religion.

Understand how the British colonial period created the basis for the development of political self-government and a free-market economic system and the differences between the British, Spanish, and French colonial systems.

Describe the introduction of slavery into America, the responses of slave families to their condition, the ongoing struggle between propo°nents and opponents of slavery, and the gradual institutionalization of slavery in the South.

Explain the early democratic ideas and practices that emerged during the colonial period, including the significance of representative assem°blies and town meetings.

Identify and map the major military battles, campaigns, and turning points of the Revolutionary War, the roles of the American and British leaders, and the Indian leaders' alliances on both sides.

Describe the contributions of France and other nations and of individuals to the outcome of the Revolution (e.g., Benjamin Franklin's negotiations with the French, the French navy, the Treaty of Paris, The Netherlands, Russia, the Marquis Marie Joseph de Lafayette, Tadeusz Kósciuszko, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben).

Identify the different roles women played during the Revolution (e.g., Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, Molly Pitcher, Phillis Wheatley, Mercy Otis Warren).

Understand the personal impact and economic hardship of the war on families, problems of financing the war, wartime inflation, and laws against hoarding goods and materials and profiteering.

Explain how state constitutions that were established after 1776 embodied the ideals of the American Revolution and helped serve as models for the U.S. Constitution.

Demonstrate knowledge of the significance of land policies developed under the Continental Congress (e.g., sale of western lands, the North-west Ordinance of 1787) and those policies' impact on American Indians' land.

Understand how the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence changed the way people viewed slavery.

List the shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation as set forth by their critics.

Explain the significance of the new Constitution of 1787, including the struggles over its ratification and the reasons for the addition of the Bill of Rights.

Understand the fundamental principles of American constitutional democracy, including how the government derives its power from the people and the primacy of individual liberty.

Understand how the Constitution is designed to secure our liberty by both empowering and limiting central government and compare the powers granted to citizens, Congress, the president, and the Supreme Court with those reserved to the states.

Discuss the meaning of the American creed that calls on citizens to safeguard the liberty of individual Americans within a unified nation, to respect the rule of law, and to preserve the Constitution.

Know the songs that express American ideals (e.g., "America the Beautiful," "The Star Spangled Banner").

Discuss the waves of immigrants from Europe between 1789 and 1850 and their modes of transportation into the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys and through the Cumberland Gap (e.g., overland wagons, canals, flatboats, steamboats).

Name the states and territories that existed in 1850 and identify their locations and major geographical features (e.g., mountain ranges, principal rivers, dominant plant regions).

Demonstrate knowledge of the explorations of the trans-Mississippi West following the Louisiana Purchase (e.g., Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Zebulon Pike, John Fremont).

Discuss the experiences of settlers on the overland trails to the West (e.g., location of the routes; purpose of the journeys; the influence of the terrain, rivers, vegetation, and climate; life in the territories at the end of these trails).

Describe the continued migration of Mexican settlers into Mexican territories of the West and Southwest.

Relate how and when California, Texas, Oregon, and other western lands became part of the United States, including the significance of the Texas War for Independence and the Mexican-American War.

Students know the location of the current 50 states and the names of their capitals.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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).

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).

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.

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.