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

• Chronology organizes people and events and helps explain historical relationships.

• Historians use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions about the past and present (historical inquiry).

• Physical and human characteristics of places define regions.

• Physical processes shape the earth's surface.

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

• How are people and events in history organized?

• How do people learn about the past? What sources do we use to find out about the people of Colorado Springs?
  What types of questions do people ask to learn about the past?

• What are the physical and human characteristics of the Pikes Peak region?  

• How has the earth's surface been changed in the Pikes Peak region?

Standards and Benchmarks

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 relationship.
Benchmark A: Students know the general chronological order of events and people in history. 
District Indicator: Chronological Organization: Organize events and people in history.
Standard History 2: Students know how to use the processes and resources of historical inquiry.
Benchmark H2 A: Students know how to formulate questions and hypotheses regarding what happened in the past and to obtain and analyze data to answer questions and test hypotheses.
District Indicator: Use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions (who, what, when, why, how) about the past and present, and to determine cause and effect relationships.
Standard Geography 2: Students know the physical and human characteristics of places, and use this knowledge to define and study regions and their patterns of change.
Benchmark G2 B: Students know how and why people define regions.
District Indicator: Identify and describe human and physical characteristics of places, and use them to define regions.
Standard Geography 3: Students understand ho physical processes shape earth's surface patterns and systems.
Benchmark G3 A: Students know the physical processes that shape earth's surface patterns.
District Indicator: Identify and describe human and physical characteristics of places, and use them to define regions.
District Indicator: Physical processes shape the earth's surface.

Standard Geography 4: Students understand how economic, political, cultural and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations, interdependence, cooperation and conflict.

Benchmark G4 A: Students know the characteristics, location, distribution, and migration of human populations.

District 11 Diamond Units/Lessons Overview - includes information about the purpose, goals and structure of these sample instructional units:

Lesson 1: People and Events in History
 
Enduring Understanding: Chronology organizes people and events and helps explain historical
Essential Question: How are people and events in history organized?
Social Studies Indicator: H1 chronological Organization: Organize events and people in history
Assessment:  Give students a list of 4 or 5 different events. Have each student make a time line placing the events in the correct order.

Activities

1. Show examples of vertical and horizontal timelines.  
2. Do simple timelines of events in students' lives, e.g. birth dates,  the history of the school or community and or Pikes Peak Region; sample in A Teachers Guide: History of the Pikes Peak, p. 7
3. Discuss the Essential Question and write a class summary explaining how people and events in history are organized.

Resources

• List of student/staff birthdays
• Discovering Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak Region (1 set available in each school) pp 17-20. Dates to include--1806, 1820, 1843, 1859, 1860.
• A Teachers Guide: History of the Pikes Peak, p. 7

Differentiation
Support: Working in pairs, students will orally put three events in chronological order.
Extension: Write a story of a person from this time period.

Lessons 2-4: How Do We Learn About the Past?
     
Duration: 3 class periods
Enduring Understanding:  Historians use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions about the past and present (historical inquiry).
Essential Questions:  How do people learn about the past?  What sources do we use to find out about the people of Colorado Springs? What types of questions do people ask to learn about the past?
District Indicator:  Use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions (who, what, when, why, how) about the past and present, and to determine cause and effect relationships.
Assessment:  Have students respond orally or in writing to the essential questions: How do people learn about the past?  What sources do we use to find out about the people of Colorado Springs? What types of questions do people ask to learn about the past?

Activities

1. A primary source is an eyewitness account done at the time or shortly thereafter by someone who was there i.e. Original letters, artifacts, video.  A secondary source is one that is done later: i.e. Textbooks, encyclopedias, etc. Use the Primary and Secondary Resource.

2. Apply by having students ask/form/answer questions about the sources they use. Look at the pictures on the right hand side of this page as examples of primary sources. For secondary sources, look at a copy of textbook, Discovering Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak Region.
3. Use worksheet titled Primary and Secondary Sources.
4. Think of two primary sources and two secondary sources from home. Look at pictures in the textbook and identify as primary or secondary.
5. Discuss stories, books and pictures from your literacy resources. Discuss biographies and journals as primary sources. Use a T- Chart  to list examples of primary and secondary sources in all content areas.
6. Respond orally or in writing to the essential questions: How do people learn about the past?  What sources do we use to find out about the people of Colorado Springs? What types of questions do people ask to learn about the past?

Resources:  Lesson attachment on primary and secondary sources
Differentiation
Support: Sort six artifacts into primary and secondary sources; Sort pictures by past and present.
Extension:  Find pictures of other primary and secondary sources and present to class for identification.

Lessons 5-7: Where in the World is Our Community?
   
Duration: 3 class periods
Enduring Understanding:  Maps, globes and other geographic tools are used to locate information about places.
Essential Questions:  Where in the world is Colorado Springs?
District Indicator: Use tools (maps, globes, photographs, graphs, charts, and databases) to locate information about places. 
Assessment: Social Studies Alive! Lesson Guide page 9

Activities

1. Social Studies Alive! Chapter 1, Lesson Guide

2. Preview: Blasting Off, 1.2 What hemisphere is this? 1.3 What continent is this?, 1.4 What country is this?, 1.5 In what community are we landing?, 1.6 Processing: Directions to our community from space.
3. Discovering Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak Region pages 10 and 11

Resources: Social Studies Alive! Lesson Guide and text: Lesson 1

Differentiation
Support: Pair students with others to complete activities.
Extension:  Find directions to miscellaneous places such as vacation sites, birthplace, state capitol.

Lesson 8-10: Physical Processes Shape the Earth’s Surface in the Pike’s Peak Region
   
Duration:  3 class periods
Enduring Understanding:  Physical processes shape the earth's surface.
Essential Questions:  How has the earth's surface been changed in the Pikes Peak region?
District Indicator: Physical processes shape the earth's surface.
Assessment:  Complete a matching exercise of physical characteristics, e.g. bear = animal, mountain=physical feature, snow=weather, columbine=plant, pine tree=plant, gold=mineral

Activities

1. Using the Social Studies Lesson Guide: Lesson 3: 3.1 Preview: What’s a travel brochure?, 3.2 Defining         Geography, 3.6 Processing: Promoting Your Community

2. Identify physical characteristics of the Pikes Peak region. Physical characteristics include physical features (land and water forms), climate and weather, soil, plants, animals and minerals.

3. Interpret pictures of the Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak from the following: Those Magnificent Rocks  
   Pikes Peak Colorado

Resources: Social Studies Alive 3! Text and Lesson Guide

Differentiation
Support: Find pictures of physical characteristics and identify the type. Develop understanding of vocabulary.
Extension: Use a video of the Royal Gorge to have students identify physical and human characteristics of place.  Royal Gorge Bridge Video

Lesson 11-13: Human Characteristics of the Pike’s Peak Region
   
Duration:  3 class periods
Enduring Understanding:  Physical and human characteristics of places define regions.
Essential Questions:  What are the physical and human characteristics of the Pikes Peak region?
District Indicator: Identify and describe human and physical characteristics of places, and use them to define regions.
Assessment:  Complete a matching exercise related to human characteristics of place, e.g. Spanish=language, bridge=human feature, fee to drive to Pikes Peak=economics or government

Activities

1. Introduce human characteristics of place: human features (anything built by humans), government, religion, art, economics and language.
2. The same activities and resources can be used with an emphasis on human characteristics the second time through. Using the same materials will actually help students distinguish between physical and human.
3. Using the Social Studies Alive Lesson Guide: Lesson 3: 3.1 Preview: What’s a travel brochure?, 3.2 Defining Geography, 3.6 Processing: Promoting your community
   Identify human characteristics of the Pikes Peak region.
4. Interpret pictures of the Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak: Those Magnificent Rocks 
   Pikes Peak Colorado

Resources: Social Studies Alive 3! Text and Lesson Guide

Differentiation
Support: Find pictures of human characteristics and identify the type. Develop understanding of vocabulary.
Extension: Use a video of the Royal Gorge to have students identify human characteristics of place.  http://www.royalgorgebridge.com/ParkVideo.aspx

Parent Resources

If you have not yet taken your child to the top of Pikes Peak or to the Garden of the Gods, this is a perfect time to do so. Your child will see many of the physical and human characteristics of this region of Colorado. Point out the different features and ask your child to share what he or she has learned about how the features were formed and how they might have changed over time. 

ABCs of Elementary Years: These ABC Tips are designed to help you support your child’s learning in social studies during their years in elementary school.