Wisconsin K–6 social studies standards

Understand we are individuals influenced by our relationships and environments.

Identify situations and places that impact a person's emotions. .

Describe how groups of people are alike and different.

Understand ways people change and adapt to new situations in places and within a family.

Compare a belief in one culture to one in a different culture (e.g., How do people in a different country celebrate their birthday?).

Describe specific types of technology and demonstrate how they are used on a daily basis for social or cultural purposes.

Differentiate between a "want" and a "need".

Describe resources that are important or useful to you, your family, community, and country.

Predict a person's change in behavior in response to different potential rewards.

Differentiate between buyers (consumers) and sellers (producers).

Define product market and categorize prices of products in a local market.

Predict how producers use the factors of production (i.e., land, labor, human and physical capital, and entrepreneurship) to make goods, deliver services, and earn profits.

Identify the cost of everyday goods (e.g., milk, bread, fruit, vegetables, cheese).

Categorize types of money (e.g., coins, bills), and explain why money is used.

Formulate reasons why people save.

Hypothesize how a good gets to the local community market.

Classify different jobs people have and how these jobs help others.

Explain what major public, private, and tribal institutions (e.g., schools, police, fire station) do for people.

Summarize goods and services that the government provides (e.g., roads, schools, police), and how they help people.

Give an example of an unintended cost or benefit to an event (e.g., getting new playground equipment, receiving a present).

Investigate how people can benefit themselves and others by developing special skills and strengths.

Hypothesize why people in one country trade goods with people in another country.

Recognize the difference between maps (paper or digital) and globes, and why someone might choose one over the other for a given task.

Identify physical and human characteristics of a place using maps, graphs, photographs, and other representations.

Construct a map (paper or digital) of a familiar place (i.e., bedroom, classroom, playground) using title, compass rose, and symbols.

Analyze where and why people live in certain places.

Classify the local community as rural, suburban, urban, or tribal.

Explain why people have moved to and away from their community.

Describe population changes in their community over time.

Identify and explain differences between rural and urban areas.

Analyze how different access to resources can create stress in a society (e.g., Who sits closer to the bathroom? Who gets to the lunchroom first?)

Compare and contrast the different modes of transportation and communication used by families in work and daily lives.

Categorize characteristics of the local community (e.g., weather/climate, population, landforms, vegetation, culture, industry).

Describe how certain places have meanings that distinguish them from other places. (e.g., shopping mall, park, places of worship).

Provide examples of human changes to the environment surrounding the school or neighborhood.

Identify natural resources (e.g., fertile soil, forests, mining) of a place and provide examples of how those resources are used.

Identify one or more causes of an event, issue, or problem.

Identify one or more effects of an event, issue, or problem.

Identify patterns of what stayed the same to self, family, and community over time.

Identify patterns of change to self, family, and community over time.

Explain how something happening outside of your home can affect your family.

Describe a person or event from the past that reflects your own life in some way.

Explain why two people can talk about an event from different viewpoints.

Explain how something from the past can affect your life now.

Describe the events that led to the creation of a primary source.

Identify the intended audience for whom the primary or secondary source was created.

Create one primary source about your life.

Identify the POV of your own primary or secondary source.

Explain why or how a teacher or text provided question is important to a topic or issue.

When provided with a question, determine what other questions are needed to support the research (i.e., "What more do we need to know?").

Brainstorm what resources would be valuable to guide the inquiry.

Review and ask questions about books, photos, artifacts, websites, and other sources that will give insight into the inquiry.

With prompting and support, state a claim to answer a question that the class is considering.

Determine which evidence in teacher-provided sources support a claim that answers a compelling question.

Explain how evidence supports a claim for a class inquiry.

Communicate conclusions.

Respond effectively to questions about their inquiry.

Explore opportunities for personal or collaborative civic engagement with community, school, state, tribal, national, and/or global implications.

Describe symbols, songs, and traditions that identify our state and country.

Assess the importance of rules and laws at home, in school, and in the community.

Compare contributions of two or more influential people related to the founding of the United States.

Compare rights and responsibilities within the classroom, school, and community.

Classify basic rights that all humans have (i.e., life, liberty, safety).

Summarize situations where individuals have rights, freedoms, and equality.

Develop an opinion about an issue in your school or community.

Identify groups within school, community, or society and compare their rights and responsibilities (e.g., student/teacher).

Investigate ways in which people and groups can influence decision makers in school, their communities, states, or country (i.e., voting, running for office, participating in meetings).

Describe and explain the effect an action has on members of a group.

Express an opinion and vote on a topic in their lives.

Identify different types of media and sources.

Explain why we have elections.

Summarize basic roles of civic institutions (e.g., school, home, family, community).

Compare basic political institutions (e.g., what a government is and how it differs at the city, state, tribal, country, and global level), and the roles they serve in their lives and in the lives of others (e.g., make laws, create order).

Predict how people come up with different ideas to solve a problem.

Compare and contrast perspectives on the same topic.

Give an example of a compromise.

Point of View (POV)

Describe how a person's understanding, perceptions, and behaviors are affected by relationships and environments.

Describe how culture, ethnicity, race, age, religion, gender, and social class can help form self-image and identity.

Compare how people from different cultures solve common problems, such as distribution of food, shelter, and social interactions.

Give examples of how peoples from different cultures develop different values and ways of interpreting experiences.

Investigate how interpretations of similarities and differences between and among cultures may lead to understandings or misunderstandings.

Classify technologies based on intended use, access, and design, and how they might change people's lives (for better or worse).

Use economic reasoning to compare and contrast the costs and benefits of a decision.

Categorize different limited resources (e.g., money, materials, time, labor/workers, land, natural resources, renewable or non-renewable).

Infer potential incentives in a real-world situation.

Compare two product markets found in the local community.

Differentiate between goods and services.

Assess the roles of consumers (demand), producers (supply), prices, non-price factors (e.g., drought or a fad item), and competition in the product market.

Compare the skills and knowledge required to produce certain goods and services.

Provide an example of the factors of production (i.e., land, labor, capital, entrepreneurship) for a given product.

Investigate how the cost of things changes over time.

Describe the role of money, banking, and savings in everyday life, including why people borrow money and the role of interest.

Trace the chain of supply for a needed product (e.g., food, shelter).

Assess the role of economic institutions (e.g., banks, government) in helping individuals and society.

Differentiate between private property (e.g., factories and homes) and public property (e.g., parks, public schools, and government buildings).

Discuss reasons a government taxes people.

Predict unintended costs and benefits (i.e., externalities) for a given current situation or event.

Compare and contrast specialization in two or more regions (e.g., Midwest and Northeastern United States; United States and Japan; Europe and South America).

Summarize how location (absolute and relative) affects people, places, and environment.

Construct maps (paper or digital), charts, and graphs using appropriate elements (i.e., date, orientation, grid, scale, title, author, index, legend, situation)

Identify purposes of and differences among maps, globes, aerial photographs, charts, and satellite images.

Create and label a map (paper or digital) of the local community, state, tribal lands, and country, including both physical (e.g., oceans and continents) and human (e.g., roads, buildings) characteristics.

Identify and construct regions (digital or paper) in Wisconsin and the United States.

Categorize the populations of people living in their state and country.

Compare and contrast types of communities (i.e., rural, suburban, urban, or tribal), and different types of places on Earth (e.g., community, state, region, country/nation).

Investigate push and pull factors of movement in their community, state, country, and world.

Describe population changes in their state, and country over time.

Summarize positive and negative factors of cities.

Identify the location and patterns of cities within our state and country.

Classify a provided set of resources as renewable or nonrenewable, and analyze the implications of both at the local, national, and global level.

Classify various ways that people and countries depend on one another.

Summarize how transportation and communication have changed economic activities over time.

Describe how certain places may have meanings that distinguish them from other places (e.g., cemetery, places of worship, state/national parks, historical park/battlefield).

Compare and contrast the human characteristics of rural, suburban, urban, and tribal locations in Wisconsin and the United States.

Identify and describe how people may view places in the community differently (e.g., students and senior citizens responding to a new playground).

Compare the positive and negative effects of human actions on our physical environment (e.g., availability of water, fertility of soils) over time

Examine how human actions modify the physical environment when using natural resources (renewable and nonrenewable).

Use evidence to draw conclusions about probable causes of historical events, issues, and problems.

Use evidence to draw conclusions about probable effects of historical events, issues, and problems.

Describe patterns of continuity over time in the community, state, and the United States.

Describe patterns of change over time in the community, state, and the United States.

Analyze individuals, groups, and events to understand why their contributions are important to historical change and/or continuity.

Compare events in Wisconsin history to a current issue or event.

Identify different historical perspectives regarding people and events in the past.

Explain how historical events have possible implications on the present.

Describe the historical context (situation) of a primary or secondary source.

Describe the significance of the intended audience of a primary or secondary source.

Describe the intended purpose of a specific primary or secondary source.

Describe the impact of the POV of the author has on a primary or secondary source.

Develop list of open- and closed-ended questions on a topic or issue.

Develop list of questions that support the research through discussion and investigation to guide inquiry.

Gather a variety of resources into categories to guide the inquiry.

Evaluate resources to determine which best support the inquiry and supporting questions.

Create a thesis statement based on evidence found in sources to make a claim.

Select appropriate evidence from sources to support a claim.

Assess how evidence supports a claim.

Communicate conclusions from a variety of teacher-provided presentation options.

Evaluate the strength of claim, evidence, and communication using criteria established by both teacher and student.

Explore opportunities for personal or collaborative civic engagement with community, school, state, tribal, national, and/or global implications.

Differentiate between majority rule and minority rights (as a function of a democratic republic).

Hypothesize why laws and constitutions exist.

Summarize the contributions of historically significant people during the period of early United States history to the development of our political culture.

Differentiate between freedom, justice, equality, rights, responsibilities, and citizenship.

Apply key elements of the Wisconsin Constitution to the local community.

Investigate examples of rights and responsibilities, including the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which individuals possess within the state, country, and world.

Summarize the actions of people and groups that have advanced civil rights for individuals.

Identify and describe basic human liberties (i.e., thought, expression, privacy).

Compare and contrast being a citizen of a country to the principles of good citizenship.

Describe the process by which people in the United States become legal citizens (i.e., natural born or naturalization).

Critique instances where groups have been denied access to power and rights, and any law or customs that have altered these instances.

Summarize how people (e.g., religious groups, civil rights groups, workers, neighborhood residents) organize to gain a greater voice to impact and change their communities.

Investigate reasons why citizens participate in elections.

Identify their role in government at the local, state, tribal, and federal levels.

Provide examples of how various types of media are used in elections and government.

Compare and contrast the multiple roles people play in elections.

Analyze the roles civic institutions play in their lives, their community and beyond (e.g., schools, community groups, religious institutions).

Classify the basic structures and functions of governments, and summarize basic powers of the government at the local, state, tribal, and federal levels.

Provide examples of how different governments solve problems.

Compile relevant information to form a political argument and taking other points of view into account.

Describe what influences different political attitudes and actions and how diverse groups can work towards consensus.

Identify patterns such as culture, prior knowledge, family, peers, school, communities, and personal interests that influence a person's cognition, perception, and behavior.

Analyze how culture, ethnicity, race, age, religion, gender, and social class affect a person's self-image and identity and interactions with others.

Summarize the role culture plays in personal and group behavior.

Categorize factors that contribute to cooperation and conflict among peoples of a country and/or the world (i.e., culture, language, religion, political beliefs).

Model how individuals learn the elements of their culture through interactions with others, and how individuals learn of other cultures through communication, travel, and study.

Analyze how a person's local actions can have global consequences, and how global patterns and processes can affect seemingly unrelated local actions.

Differentiate between intended and unintended consequences of various forms of technology and how they may affect societies and cultures.

Predict the opportunity costs of various decisions, and explain why the opportunity cost might differ from person to person or in different situations.

Assess how limited resources (e.g., money, land, natural resources, workers, time) impact the choices of individuals, households, communities, businesses, and countries.

Evaluate how incentives impact individual and/or household decision-making.

Analyze the role of consumers and producers in product markets.

Provide examples of how individuals and households are both consumers and producers.

Investigate the relationship between supply and demand.

Evaluate the extent to which competition exists in product markets, and its relationship to price and quality of goods and services.

Categorize factors of production and how they are combined to make goods and deliver services.

Evaluate how profits influence sellers in markets.

Analyze how inflation, deflation, and unemployment affect different groups.

Differentiate between the functions of money (i.e., medium of exchange, store of value, unit of account).

Assess how interest rates influence borrowing and investing.

Define Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and compare the GDP of different nations.

Compare and contrast how different economic systems (traditional, command, market, mixed) choose to allocate the production, distribution and consumption of resources (what/how/for whom is it produced).

Compare and contrast the role of different economic institutions such as banks, labor unions, non-profits, and businesses in an economy.

Analyze rules and laws that protect and support both consumers (e.g., private property, zoning, contracts, agreements, and product safety) and workers (e.g., labor unions, regulations, minimum wage).

Analyze the impact of different government policies (e.g., taxation and government spending) on the economy.

Analyze potential unintended costs and benefits (i.e., externalities) for a local or state law or policy.

Summarize the role of specialization on trade and cost of goods/services.

Identify examples of U.S. exports and imports.

Use paper and digital maps to ask and answer geographic questions (e.g., Where are there patterns? Why there? So what?).

Analyze how various map projections distort shape, area, distance and direction (e.g., Mercator, Robinson, Peters).

Interpret patterns in a variety of maps, charts, and graphs to display geographic information (contour, cartogram, population, natural resource, historical maps) and explain

Construct a mental map of regions, and locate the major regions of the world and their physical and cultural features including continents, cities, countries, bodies of water, landforms, mountain ranges, and climate zones.

Compare mental maps shaped by individual perceptions of people, places, regions, and environments.

Analyze why populations increase or decrease in various regions throughout the world.

Analyze the distribution of population patterns at various scales (i.e., local, state, country, region).

Analyze patterns of migration of various types (e.g., age, sex, ethnicity, race) in the community, state, country, and world.

Use regions in the world to analyze the role of population shifts in why places change over time.

Evaluate the impact of migration on the place of origin and the place of settlement.

Investigate the impact of rural decline and the growth of cities on a place.

Analyze patterns of urbanization around the world.

Analyze the relationship between the distribution of resources and patterns of human settlement within states, countries, and regions of the world now and in the past.

Analyze spatial patterns of social and economic development in a variety of regions in the world.

Identify how people, products, and ideas move between places (e.g., internet commerce, outsourcing).

Explain how place-based identities can change places over time.

Investigate how place-based identity results from the characteristics of a place and can sometimes result in stereotypes of people from a specific place.

Describe students' perceptions of a place that are based on indirect sources (e.g., television, movies), versus on direct sources (e.g., residing in a place, visiting a place).

Analyze how technology interacts with the environment and how increased use of technology affects the burden/use of natural resources.

Analyze how distribution of natural resources such as fisheries and crops (renewable and nonrenewable) creates systems of commerce between groups.

Analyze how unequal distribution of resources creates inequities between regions and can lead to conflict between competing nations.

Use multiple perspectives to analyze and explain issues or events within and across time periods, events, or cultures.

Use multiple perspectives to analyze and explain effects of issues or events within and across time periods, events, or cultures.

Explain patterns of continuity over time in the community, the state, the United States, and the world.

Explain patterns of change over time in the community, the state, the United States, and the world.

Analyze how the historical context influenced the process or nature of the continuity or change that took place.

Compare events from United States or world history to a current issue or event.

Apply historical perspectives to describe differing viewpoints of current events.

Hypothesize the direction of current events and outcomes based on the past.

Explain how the historical context (situation) influences a primary or secondary source.

Explain the significance of the intended audience of a primary or secondary source.

Explain the significance of the intended purpose of a specific primary or secondary source.

Explain how the POV of the author can influence the meaning of a primary or secondary source.

Formulate open-ended questions for further research within one of the social studies disciplines.

Identify additional questions that support the research and possible resources to guide the inquiry.

Explore evidence from multiple reliable sources representing a range of perspectives and media that have been selected through research to guide the inquiry.

Determine credibility and applicability of a source by considering a variety of factors through the lens of a social studies strand.

Develop a debatable and defensible claim based upon the analysis of sources.

Support claim with evidence from multiple reliable sources representing a range of mediums (electronic, digital, print, and other mass media).

Analyze the extent to which evidence supports or does not support a claim, and if it does not, adjust claim appropriately.

Communicate conclusions using a variety of media (i.e. video or online, documentaries, exhibits, research papers, or web pages).

Analyze and evaluate the logic, relevance, and accuracy of others' claims, taking into consideration potential bias.

Explore opportunities for personal or collaborative civic engagement with community, school, state, tribal, national, and/or global implications.

Investigate the components of responsible citizenship.

Summarize the importance of rule of law.

Hypothesize and defend why a specific historically significant person's contribution to the development of the political culture of the United States was important.

Investigate how principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution (including the Preamble and the Bill of Rights) have been applied throughout United States history, including how they may have evolved over time.

Assess specific protections to individuals outlined in the Wisconsin Constitution and what they mean to local communities and regions of the state.

Analyze the scope and limits of individual protections found in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Describe the evolution of rights over time including key laws, constitutional changes, and court decisions that contributed to these developments.

Predict how collective action movements work to extend equal rights to groups and individuals.

Analyze the rights and responsibilities of citizens (i.e., voting, jury duty, paying taxes, obeying laws).

Synthesize the cultural structures, types of government, and economic systems to explain differing concepts of citizenship (e.g., Confucianism, dictatorship, theocracy, republic, democracy).

Compare and contrast the political, social, and economic status of marginalized groups both historically and in the present, both in the United States and worldwide.

Investigate how groups (e.g., women, religious groups, civil rights groups, Indigenous peoples, LGBTQ) have advocated for access to greater rights.

Assess voter participation in elections.

Explain their role in government at the local, state, tribal, and federal levels.

Analyze the role of various types of media in elections and functions of government.

Analyze how elections and political parties in the United States connect the people to government.

Summarize how civic institutions influence society and politics. (e.g., special interest groups, chamber of commerce, lobbying).

Analyze the structure, functions, powers, and limitations of government at the local, state, tribal, and federal levels.

Analyze how governments address and solve problems through the public policy process.

Assemble an argument utilizing multiple sources of information.

Provide examples of diplomacy, pluralism, and consensus building (between individuals, groups, and institutions).