Standards - Social Studies

Describe the world in spatial terms using maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies.

Explaining the use of map essentials, including type, projections, scale, legend, distance, direction, grid, and symbols

Identifying geospatial technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective

Utilizing maps to explain relationships and environments among people and places, including trade patterns, governmental alliances, and immigration patterns

Applying mental maps to answer geographic questions, including how experiences and cultures influence perceptions and decisions

Categorizing the geographic organization of people, places, and environments using spatial models

Determine how regions are used to describe the organization of Earth’s surface.

Identifying physical and human features used as criteria for mapping formal, functional, and perceptual regions

Interpreting processes and reasons for regional change, including land use, urban growth, population, natural disasters, and trade

Analyzing interactions among regions to show transnational relationships, including the flow of commodities and Internet connectivity

Comparing how culture and experience influence individual perceptions of places and regions

Explaining globalization and its impact on people in all regions of the world

Compare geographic patterns in the environment that result from processes within the atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere of Earth’s physical systems.

Comparing Earth-Sun relationships regarding seasons, fall hurricanes, monsoon rainfalls, and tornadoes

Explaining processes that shape the physical environment, including long-range effects of extreme weather phenomena

Describing characteristics and physical processes that influence the spatial distribution of ecosystems and biomes on Earth’s surface

Comparing how ecosystems vary from place to place and over time

Comparing geographic issues in different regions that result from human and natural processes

Evaluate spatial patterns and the demographic structure of population on Earth’s surface in terms of density, dispersion, growth and mortality rates, natural increase, and doubling time.

Predicting reasons and consequences of migration, including push and pull factors

Explain how cultural features, traits, and diffusion help define regions, including religious structures, agricultural patterns, ethnic enclaves, ethnic restaurants, and the spread of Islam.

Illustrate how primary, secondary, and tertiary economic activities have specific functions and spatial patterns.

Comparing one location to another for production of goods and services

Analyzing the impact of economic interdependence and globalization on places and their populations

Explaining why countries enter into global trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), the European Union (EU), the Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

Classify spatial patterns of settlement in different regions of the world, including types and sizes of settlement patterns.

Explaining human activities that resulted in the development of settlements at particular locations due to trade, political importance, or natural resources

Describing settlement patterns in association with the location of resources

Describing ways in which urban areas interact and influence surrounding regions

Determine political, military, cultural, and economic forces that contribute to cooperation and conflict among people.

Identifying political boundaries based on physical and human systems

Identifying effects of cooperation among countries in controlling territories

Describing the eruption of territorial conflicts over borders, resources, land use, and ethnic and nationalistic identity

Explain how human actions modify the physical environment within and between places, including how human-induced changes affect the environment.

Explain how human systems develop in response to physical environmental conditions.