Unit 1:  A New World Rising

Unifying Themes:

• Geography, Humans and the Environment
• Individual Development and Cultural Identity
• Development, Movement, and Interaction of Cultures
• Time, Continuity, and Change
• Power, Authority and Governance

New York State Social Studies Framework

• Social Studies Standards
  • 1: United States History and New York
  • 2: World History
  • 3: Geography
  • 4: Economics
  • 5. Civics, Citizenship and Government
• Key Ideas:
  • 5.1, 5.2
• Conceptual Understandings:
  • 5.1a, 5.1b, 5.2a, 5.2b, 5.2c
• Social Studies Practices:
  1. Gathering, Interpreting, and Using Evidence
  2. Chronological Reasoning
  3. Comparison and Contextualization
  4. Geographic Reasoning

Next Generation English Language Arts Learning Standards

• 5R1, 5R2, 5R3, 5R4, 5R5, 5R6, 5R7, 5R8, 5R9
• 5W2. 5W4
• 5SL1, 5SL4

Each lesson has the specific Standard written out for ea sy reference by the teacher.

What will students understand as a result of this unit?

• Historians may have different theories about events
• Human beings have developed from hunter gathers to culture groups to civilizations
• Events occur at different times in history
• Civilizations have certain characteristics but each civilization is unique

What “essential” and “unit” questions focus this unit?

• What makes people similar yet unique?

What evidence shows that students understand the theories of migration, the emergence of culture groups, and the Aztec, Mayan and Incan civilizations?

Performance Tasks, Projects

• Draw conclusions from artifacts, visuals, and text
• Analyze maps
• Create poster based on research on a Western Hemisphere culture group
• Draw information and conclusions from a chart
• Apply information to the creation of a chart
• Write an informational essay or project comparing two civilizations
• Write Journal entry

Vocabulary: 

• land bridge
• migration
• environment
• culture
• Paleo-Indians
• Mesoamerica
• hypothesis
• artifact
• Caribbean
• Mesoamerica
• North America
• South America