Social Studies

The Social Studies Department offers a variety of courses designed to help students better understand themselves and their world. Courses emphasize the comprehension and appreciation of the relationships and interdependence of people and cultures. Instruction focuses on analytical thinking, problem solving, decision-making, interpretation, study skills, and research techniques. The Social Studies Department also works in close cooperation with the English Department to coordinate the two curricula wherever possible and to teach research-paper-writing skills appropriate to both programs.

Global Studies: Exploring the Geography and Cultures of the World

Students traverse the world studying the geography and cultures of each continent and dive deeper into a handful of specific countries. This class is organized around key themes focusing on the importance of geography in the development of regions around the world and focusing on how specific cultural traits, practices, and systems inform societies. Through a case-study approach, students explore the regions of the world in a geographer’s lens including the Americas, Europe and Russia, Africa, Asia, and Oceania and Australia. Students will analyze cultures from the past and the present and how they have developed, evolved, and changed through time. This course emphasizes student’s literacy skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing embedded throughout the units of study which are designed to challenge students to think critically and collaboratively about the relationships and interdependence of diverse groups and cultures. Students will also develop note-taking, research, organization, and essential study skills. Students build empathy while learning about various perspectives and making connections to current national and global issues.
Social Studies 6

The sixth-grade social studies program is organized around a series of themes focusing on American history topics from 1800 to 1910. As students explore these themes they are expected to develop internet and library research skills, mapping and graphing skills, effective collaboration, creative thinking, and communication skills. Units are designed to give students a basic understanding of major historical events and social patterns that have shaped their world. Many hands-on activities introducing basic geographical and historical tools and concepts provide students with research, note-taking, and study skills. Students of social studies are challenged to think critically and creatively about the relationships and interdependence of diverse peoples and cultures
U.S. History 8

Following the APUSH designations of Period Six, Seven, and Eight, the course will focus on 1865 to 1980. It will begin with a thorough review of the major events and people that shaped America prior to the ending of the Civil War. Diverse learning materials offer perspective on how history unfolded from various points of view. Students are encouraged to question and critically assess historical events as presented through course literature, films, presentations, and lectures (and occasionally field trips). In order to explain contemporary politics and international affairs, it is important that students develop a strong understanding of how the nation’s laws and policies have been established and how these policies have affected those at home and abroad economically, socially, and politically. The following themes will be woven into the daily classroom experience: environment, migration, cultural diversity, values and beliefs, free enterprise, technology, constitutional government, civil rights, national identity, and cooperation and conflict. Critical thinking skills are the core of this course. Students learn to question what they have read and determine the motives behind the actions of not only historical figures, but also of groups and factions. Students also hypothesize about how history may have turned out differently while assessing the importance of individual actors and events in creating our common past. Critical thinking and writing skills include making contrasts and comparisons, organizing and evaluating historical information, distinguishing fact from opinion, analyzing decision-making, interpreting maps, charts and time lines, analyzing cause-and-effect relationships, and identifying alternatives.

Curriculum Detail

Social Studies

Global Studies: Exploring the Geography and Cultures of the World

Social Studies 6

U.S. History 8

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