Wyoming K–6 social studies standards

Understand that schools, tribes, communities, and the United States have rules that have to be followed.

Identify the symbols and traditional practices, including those of Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming (e.g., Arapaho and Shoshone flags, songs, and pledges), that honor patriotism in the United States.

Identify people and events that are honored on United States holidays.

Identify how Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming honor people and celebrate through events (e.g., Native American Veterans Day, Native American Heritage Day, Wyoming Native American Day, Pow Wows).

Understand that the rules in the United States are called laws.

Name the ways groups (e.g., families and schools), including Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming, meet human needs and concerns (e.g., belonging and personal safety) and contribute to personal identity and daily life (e.g., compare features of modern-day living [food, shelter, clothing, transportation] to those of the past; create a chart showing how farming, schools, or communities have changed over time; illustrate past dwellings [tepee, sweat lodge, wikiup, sod, log cabin, earth lodge] and present-day housing).

Recognize and describe unique ways in which expressions of culture influence people including Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming (e.g., language, sign language, stories, music, symbolism, and art).

Give examples of and/or identify needs, wants, goods, and services.

Identify how price may affect buying, selling, and saving decisions.

Identify how science or technology affects production (e.g., assembly line, robots, and video streaming).

Identify how an event could change the future (e.g., moving to a new town means going to a new school or learning to ride a bike could mean getting to a friend’s house faster).

Identify tools and technologies, including those of Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming, that made or make life easier and sustainable (e.g., cars for getting one place to another, washing machines for washing clothes, flashlights to see in the dark, and usage of bison and and natural resources).

Describe a “current event” involving significant people and places in Wyoming (e.g., local, state, or tribal events).

Use a map, globe, and mental mapping to identify familiar areas and simple patterns and create maps using various media.

Identify, describe, and use local physical and human characteristics to discuss the similarities and differences between parts of the community (e.g., neighborhoods, schools, towns, and reservation communities).

Use the human features of a community to describe what makes that community unique (e.g., cultural, language, religion, food, clothing, political, economic, population, and types of jobs in an area) and why others move to or from that place.

Identify how people, including Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming, may adjust to and/or change their environment in order to survive (e.g., clothing, houses, foods, and natural resources).

Identify what kinds of information can be found in different resources (e.g., library, computer, atlas, and dictionary).

Distinguish between fiction and non-fiction.

Use digital tools to learn about social studies concepts.

Describe the basic rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

Understand the basic local, tribal, state, and national political processes (e.g., campaigning and voting).

Understand the basic origins of the United States Constitution (e.g., Declaration of Independence).

Understand the purpose of the U.S. legal system and that tribal governments have separate legal systems.

Understand the purposes of the three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial).

Understand how the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone are sovereign nations with their own systems of governance (i.e., each has a General Council and a resolution form of government).

Identify and describe the ways groups, including Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming (e.g., families, communities, schools, and social organizations), meet human needs and concerns (e.g., belonging, self-worth, and personal safety) and contribute to identity (e.g., personal, tribal, ethnic) and daily life (e.g., traditions, beliefs, language, customs).

Describe, compare, and contrast ways in which unique expressions of culture (e.g., tribal affiliation, language, spirituality, stories, folktales, music, art, and dance) influence people.

Identify and describe characteristics and contributions of local and state cultural groups, including Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming, in Wyoming and the region.

Identify and describe positive and negative interactions (e.g., withholding of Native American U.S. citizenship until 1924), the tensions among cultural groups, social classes, and/or significant individuals in Wyoming and the United States (e.g., Martin Luther King Jr., Helen Keller, Sacagawea, Chief Washakie, Chief Black Coal, Chief Pocatello, Chief Sharp Nose, and Chief Friday).

Give examples of needs, wants, goods, services, scarcity, and choice.

Identify basic economic concepts (e.g., supply, demand, price, and trade).

Identify and describe how science and technology have affected production and distribution locally, nationally, and globally (e.g., trains and natural resources).

Explain the roles and effect of money, banking, savings, and budgeting in personal life and society.

Describe how small changes can lead to big changes (cause and effect) (e.g., introduction of horses to the Plains tribes, discovery of gold and minerals in the region, discovery of electricity, impact of the Homestead Act and Dawes Act, establishment of water rights and resource management).

Describe how tools and technology make life easier; describe how one tool or technology evolves into another (e.g., telegraph to telephone to cell phone or travois to horse-drawn wagon to railroad to car); identify a tool or technology that impacted history (e.g., ships allowed for discovery of new lands, boiling water prevented spread of disease, railroads and the industrial revolution led to devastation of bison population, and impact of mineral and oil development in the region).

Select current events for relevance and apply understanding of cause and effect to determine how current events impact people or groups, including Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming (e.g., energy development, water rights, new technology, and social issues).

Discuss different groups that a person may belong to, including Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming, (e.g., family, neighborhood, cultural/ethnic, and workplace) and how those roles and/or groups have changed over time.

Identify differences between primary (e.g., historical photographs, artifacts, and documents, including treaties) and secondary sources. Find primary and secondary sources about an historical event (e.g., creation of reservations, Sand Creek Massacre, and creation of national parks). Summarize central ideas in primary and secondary resources.

Apply mental mapping skills and use different representations of the Earth to demonstrate an understanding of human and physical patterns and how local decisions may create global impacts.

Identify boundaries of the Wind River Indian Reservation.

Explain how physical features, patterns, and systems impact different regions and how these features may help us generalize and compare areas within the reservation, state, nation, or world.

Describe the human features of an area (e.g., language, religion, political and economic systems, population distribution, and quality of life), past and present settlement patterns (e.g., Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming and the Oregon Trail), and how ideas, goods, and/or people move from one area to another.

Describe how cultural values of the Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming influence the importance and preservation of place and sacred sites (e.g., Devils Tower/Bear Lodge, Hot Springs State Park, Vedauwoo, Crowheart Butte, Bighorn Medicine Wheel, Estes Park, Yellowstone, Heart Mountain, and Wind River Mountains).

Describe and identify a variety of place names and their connection to Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming.

Describe how the environment influences people in Wyoming and how we adjust to and/or change our environment in order to survive (e.g., natural resources, housing, and food).

Discuss the ways in which the environment, including climate and seasons, influenced how the Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming adapted to their natural environment (e.g., how they obtained food, clothing, tools, and migration).

Use various media resources in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Identify validity of information (e.g., accuracy, relevancy, fact, or fiction).

Use digital tools to research, design, and present social studies concepts (e.g., understand how individual responsibility applies in usage of digital media). link to ISTE student standards.

Identify the difference between primary and secondary sources.

Explain the rights, duties, and responsibilities of a United States citizen.

Explain the rights, duties, and responsibilities of being a tribal member on the Wind River Indian Reservation (e.g., inherent rights, treaty obligations, and tribal sovereignty).

Explain how to participate in the political process. (i.e., tribal, local, state, and national elections).

Explain the historical development of the United States Constitution and treaties (e.g., 1868 Fort Bridger Treaty) and how they have shaped the United States, Wyoming, and tribal government.

Understand the differences between United States civil and criminal legal systems within the federal, state, and tribal levels.

Describe the structures of the United States and Wyoming Constitutions (e.g., Articles, Bill of Rights, amendments).

Describe how the U.S. Constitution creates a special relationship with tribal governments (i.e., Plenary Power, Indian Commerce Clause - Article I, Section 8, Clause 3; Supremacy Clause - Article VI, Clause 2; Cherokee Nation v. Georgia).

Understand the basic structures of various political systems (e.g., tribal, local, national, and world).

Compare and contrast the ways various groups (e.g., ethnic communities and Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming) meet human needs and concerns (e.g., self-esteem, friendship, and tribal heritage) and contribute to identity, situations, and events.

Evaluate how human expression (e.g., language, literature, arts, architecture, traditions, beliefs, and spirituality) contributes to cultural development, understanding, and continuity (e.g., oral tradition, Pow Wows, ceremonies, and assimilation).

Analyze the unique cultural characteristics of various groups within Wyoming and the nation, including Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming (e.g., language, traditions, spirituality, art, and lifestyle).

Explain the cultural contributions of and tensions between groups in Wyoming, the United States, and the World (e.g., racial, ethnic, social, and institutional).

Explain the cultural contributions of and interactions between Native Americans and immigrant groups in Wyoming and the United States.

Identify and apply basic economic concepts (e.g., supply, demand, production, exchange and consumption, labor, wages, scarcity, prices, incentives, competition, and profits).

Compare and contrast how people organize for the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services in various economic systems (e.g., characteristics of market, command, and mixed economies).

Describe the impact of technological advancements on production, distribution, and consumption. (e.g., businesses and/or corporations in the United States and the world).

Explain or illustrate how money is used by individuals, groups, and financial institutions.

Describe how values and beliefs influence individual, family, and business decisions (microeconomics).

Describe how historical events impact the future (cause and effect) and how change spreads to other places (e.g., spread of industrial revolution or causes of the Civil War, impacts of Manifest Destiny, aftermath of French and Indian War, and progression of Indian Removal Act).

Describe how tools and technology in different historical periods impacted the way people, including Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming, lived, made decisions, and saw the world (e.g., impact of horses and European trade goods on Plains Indian cultures, mechanized agriculture, and Industrial Revolution technologies).

Analyze the way current events affect all people, including Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming. Investigate the history leading up to those events and suggest alternative ways such events may have played out.

Identify historical interactions between and among individuals, groups, and/or institutions (e.g., family, neighborhood, political, economic, religious, social, cultural, and workplace).

Identify how federal policies have impacted Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming historically and currently (e.g., reservations, treaties, allotment, boarding schools, and forced assimilation).

Identify relevant primary (e.g., historical photographs, artifacts, and documents, including treaties) and secondary sources for research. Compare and contrast treatment of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources, which may include oral history and traditional storytelling.

Use and create models of the Earth to analyze the interactions of physical and human systems to demonstrate global interconnectedness.

Analyze the impact of natural resources on tribal locations, past and present.

Analyze and evaluate how physical features and changes influenced historical events (e.g., route of Union Pacific Railroad, location of Wind River Indian Reservation, state and national monuments and parks) and participate in collaborative problem solving and decision making in the selection of professional and personal choices.

Explain how communities’ current and past demographics, migrations, and settlement patterns influence place (e.g., culture, needs, and political and economic systems) and use this analysis to predict future settlement patterns.

Explain how the migration and settlement patterns of indigenous tribes influence place (e.g., migration of pre-Columbian Tribes, and reservation movement).

Analyze the changes to and consequences of human, natural, and technological impacts on the physical environment.

Analyze how cultural practices continue to influence how Indigenous Tribes of Wyoming interact with the environment.

Use and evaluate multiple sources of information in diverse formats and media in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text.

Use digital tools to research, design, and present social studies concepts (e.g., understand how individual responsibility applies in usage of digital media).

Use accurate, sufficient, and relevant information from primary and secondary sources to support writing.