Enduring Understandings

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

• Societies are diverse and change over time.

• Technology has changed societies throughout history.

• Beliefs of individuals and groups have powerful effects on societies.

• Maps, globes and other geographic tools show places events occur

• Physical and human characteristics of places define regions.

• People migrate and settle in different places for a variety of reasons.

• Human activity changes and is changed by the physical environment.

• Decisions must be made about the use of scarce resources.

• Resources are used to produce and distribute goods and services.

• The exchange of goods and services leads to trade and interdependence.

• Individuals and groups make, enforce and apply rules and laws (government). 

• Government involves people acquiring and using power and authority.

• Rules, laws and governments develop and change over time.

• People and nations interact politically.

 Essential Questions

• When and Why did Europeans explore the New World?

• What new inventions helped guide explorers on their journeys?

• Which early explorers had the greatest impact?

• What impact did the explorers have on the New/Old World?

• How did the beliefs of individuals and groups influence the formation of governments and societies?

• How were the beliefs of individuals/groups in the colonies similar/ different?

• How are maps used to show routes taken to the New World?

• What physical characteristics aided/challenged inhabitants of the first colonies?

• Why did people migrate and settle in these places?

• In what ways were the New England, Middle and Southern colonies most alike?  Most different?

• How did the environment affect human activities?

• How did scarcity of resources lead to trade, exchange and interdependence with Native Americans?

• What role did slavery play in colonization and settlement in different colonies and regions?

• What were the key political challenges and successes of the first English colonies?

• How and why were early colonial governments formed?

• How have the ways people live changed over time?

Standards and Benchmarks

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.