Standards

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: Lesson 1 Title
Duration: @ 1 class period

Integrated Reading and Writing:

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. It is a good time to begin talking about how rules in your home and rules in the school differ from laws in the city. Visiting the Pioneers Museum or spending time at Rock Ledge Ranch would help your child learn about the early history of the city and region.

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.