Social Studies

Grade 8 Social Studies
Text: The American Nation, Prentice Hall, 2003 edition

Grades are based on Chapter Tests--40%, Projects--30%, Quizzes--20%, Homework--10%
 

• A Nation Divided; The Civil War, Reconstruction
  • Identify strategies the United States attempted in dealing with growing sectional differences and why they failed
  • Identify the people, places, and things that affected the outcome of the Civil War
  • Analyze the short and long term effects of the Civil War
• The West; Industrial and Urban Growth
  • Evaluate the effect of big business on the development of the West
  • Describe how industrialization effected change in the United States
  • Describe the causes and effect of the growth of cities
  • Identify the reforms of the early twentieth century
• Expansion and World War I; The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression; World War II
  • Describe how a more powerful United states expanded its role in the world
  • Identify political movements that affected world events in the early part of the

• Describe the nation’s reaction to the changes in the 1920’s that led to the Great Depression and its affect on the American people and government
• Identify and evaluate the causes and effects of World War II

• The United States and the Cold War; Civil Rights Era; Vietnam Era
  • Identify key foreign and domestic issues that affected the United States after World War II
  • Explain how the civil rights movement began establishing equal opportunity for all Americans
  • Identify the causes and immediate and subsequent effects of the Vietnam War
• New Directions—A changing World Climate
  • Identify the events that changed the way Americans viewed the presidency
  • Show how major national and international events affected the nation
  • Identify the challenges faced by the United states in the 21^st Century
• Geography
  • Use the appropriate tools and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective in the study of world regions
  • Organize information about people, places, and environments in a spatial context
  • Analyze the special organization of people, places, and environments on the Earth’s surface
  • Recognize and interpret the physical and human characteristics of places
  • Recognize that characteristics of regions have led to regional labels and that people create regions to interpret Earth’s complexity
  • Understand how culture and experience influence people’s perception of places and regions
  • Understand the physical processes that shape the patterns of the Earth’s surface
  • Describe the characteristics and special distribution of ecosystems on Earth’s surface
  • Understand the characteristics, distribution, and migration of human populations on the Earth’s surface
  • Understand the characteristics, distribution, and complexity of the Earth’s cultural diversity
  • Identify and explain the patterns and networks of economic interdependence on Earth’s surface
  • Identify and understand the processes, patterns, and functions of human settlements
  • To understand how the forces of cooperation and conflict among people influence the division and control of Earth’s surface
  • Understand how human actions modify the physical environment
  • Understand how physical systems affect human systems
  • Understand the changes that occur in the meaning, use, distribution and importance of resources