Enduring Understandings - important ideas that students should carry with them years beyond the instruction received this year.

• People and events are organized chronologically to increase understanding of historical relationships.
• Primary and secondary sources and processes of historical inquiry allow for interpreting the past and analyzing present day issues.
• Societies are diverse and change over time.
• Technological developments have impacted individuals and societies throughout history.
• Religious beliefs and philosophical ideas change societies.
• Different forms of government have been developed, practiced, and changed throughout history.
• Geographic tools are used to locate and derive information about the past.
• Physical and human characteristics of places define regions.
• Migration and immigration affect the location and distribution of human activity.
• Knowledge of geography increases understanding of past and present.
• Trade specialization, and interdependence influence relationships among individuals, groups and societies.

Essential Questions - most important “big picture” questions students should be able to answer after completing learning activities.

• How does the chronology lead to the understanding of historical relationships?
• How did the major events affect the development of a civilization?
• What is the difference between primary and secondary document? How can we use them to interpret information about the past?
• Which civilization studied was the most advanced, and why?
• How did technological changes impact each civilization? Which changes had the most impact and in which civilization?
• How were ancient civilizations governed?
• What major religious beliefs and philosophical ideas developed? (Judaism, Christianity, mythology)? What impact did these religious beliefs have on each civilization?
• How do physical and human characteristics define and identify region and place?
• How did the physical characteristics of regions influence human characteristics?
• How do migration and trade routes affect location/distribution of human activity?
• How did trade and specialization result in interdependence?

Social Studies Standards
Geography standard 1: Students know how to use and construct maps, gloves, and other geographic tools to locate and derive information about people, places, and environments.
Geography standard 2: Students know the physical and human characteristics of places, and use this knowledge to define and study regions and their patterns of change.
Geography standard 6: Students apply knowledge of people, places, and environments to understand the past and present, and to plan for the future.
History standard 1: Students understand the chronological organization of history and know how to organize events and people into major eras to identify and explain historical relationships.
History standard 2: Students know how to use the processes and resources of historical inquiry.
History standard 3: Students understand that societies are diverse and change over time.
History standard 4: Students understand how science, technology, and economic activity have developed, changed, and affected societies throughout history.
History standard 5: Students understand political institutions and theories that developed and changed over time.
History standard 6: Students know that religious and philosophical ideas have been powerful forces throughout history.
Civics standard 4: Students understand how citizens exercise the roles, rights, and responsibilities of participation in civic life at all levels.
Economics standard 3: Students understand the results of trade, exchange, and interdependence among individuals, households, businesses, governments, and societies.

Language Arts Standards
Standard 2: Students read, write and speak for a variety of purposes and audiences.
Standard 3: Students read, write and speak using conventional grammar, usage, sentence structure, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.
Standard 4: Students apply thinking skills to their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing.

Writing
The Cross Curricular Writing plan is used as a guide for writing assignments.

Science Standards
Standard 1: Students understand the processes of scientific investigations and design, conduct, communicate about, and evaluate such investigation.
Standard 3:  Life Science Students know and understand the characteristics and structures of living things, the processes of life and how living things interact with each other and their environment.   Students know and understand the characteristics of living things, the diversity of life, and how living things interact with each other and with their environment.  Students know and understand interrelationships of matter and energy in living systems.  Students know and understand how the human body functions, factors that influence its structures and functions compared with those of other organisms.  Students know and understand how organisms change over time in terms of biological evolution and genetics.

SAIL Discovery
The Discovery class is comprised of 3 elements. The primary focus is taken from Dr. George T. Betts and Jolene K. Kercher’s Autonomous Learner Model (ALM). This model is explained in more detail below. The second element of Discovery is Advisory. This is a time where I, as the SAIL Coordinator, can be available to students to discuss possible transition issues into middle school, to provide organizational support, and to just be there to ensure a smooth beginning of the year. The third aspect of the class is to provide additional time for Homework Completion as well as Accelerated Reader.

Autonomous Learner Model
“The Autonomous Learner Model (ALM) for the Gifted and Talented was developed specifically to meet the diversified cognitive, emotional, and social needs of learners. Originating at Arvada West High School in Arvada, Colorado, it is now successfully implemented in kindergarten through high school with the gifted and talented as well as all learners in the regular classrooms. Emphasis is placed on meeting the individualized needs of learners through the use of activities in the five major dimensions of the model: Orientation, Individual Development, Enrichment, Seminars, In-depth Study."
~ Autonomous Learner Model: Optimizing Ability. Betts, George T. and Kercher, Jolene K., ALPS publishing, 1999.

• Orientation Dimension  - provides learners, teachers, administrators, and parents the opportunity to develop a foundation of the concepts of giftedness, talent, intelligence, creativity, and the development of potential. Learners learn more about themselves, their abilities, and what the program has to offer. Activities are presented to give learners an opportunity to work together as a group, to learn more about group process and interaction, and to learn more about the other people in the program.

• Individual Development Dimension  - provides learners with the opportunity to develop the cognitive, emotional social and physical skills, concepts, and attitudes necessary for life-long learning.

• Enrichment Dimension - provides learners with opportunities to explore content which is usually not part of the every day curriculum.

• Seminar Dimension - gives learners in groups of three to five opportunities to research a topic, present it as a seminar to the rest of the class and other interested people, and to assess it by criteria selected and developed by the learners.

• In-Depth Study Dimension  - empowers learners to pursue areas of interest through the development of a long-term small group or individual in-depth study. The learners determine what will be learned, how it will be learned, how it will be presented, what facilitation will be necessary, what the final product will be, and how the entire learning process will be assessed.

Grade 7 Conceptual Vocabulary