Subject: Social Studies
Timeframe Needed for Completion: 4-5 Weeks
Grade Level: 6th
Grading Period: 3rd
Unit 6 Title: Road to Democracy…Greece and Rome
Big Idea/Theme: Creation of the First Democratic Governments
Understandings:
 Describe the important elements of the Greek city-state.
 Describe the characteristics of Greek democracy.
 Identify Job Specializations with the society
 Explore and explain mythology and its significance for the establishment of religion.
 Explain the factors that lead to the decline and fall of the Greek and Roman governments.
Essential Standards:
Essential Questions:
 How did political and cultural geography influence the rapid
History: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4
expansion of trade and the spread of civilization?
Geography: 1.2, 1.4, 2.1
 Explain the characteristics of the earliest inhabitants of ancient Greece
Economics: 1.1, 1.2
and Rome.
Civics & Governance: 1.2, 1.3, 1.4
 Research what led to the road of democracy in Greece and Rome.
Culture: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3
 Explain the distribution of wealth and power in Greece and Rome.
 What caused the decline of the Roman Empire?
 How did postclassical civilizations preserve and extend ancient
learning from the Four Cradles of Ancient Society?
 How did the rise of Christianity influence the government and people
of Rome?
Essential Skills/Vocabulary:
Essential Skills
 Explain how and why civilizations used and modified
environments to suit the needs of the people.
 Explain how invasions, conquests, and migrations
affected the Greece and Roman civilizations, societies,
and regions.
 Summarize the ideas that shaped political thought in
Greece and Rome.
 Identify the cultural influences on trade and the
expansion of peoples.
 Describe how key historical figures and cultural groups
influenced and transformed societies.
 Discuss how competition, conflict, and compromise over
the availability of natural, human, and capital resources
Assessment Tasks:
 Projects, journals, foldables
 Using a map, trace the trade routes of goods and
people.
 Create a timeline
 Choose an Empire and create an illustrated time line
of that Empire’s history, from creation to decline.
 Create an Empire cube.
 Write a “What if…” paper.
 Create a learning cube that reflects the various
products, technologies, and ideas passed along the
trade routes

Important People: Alexander the Great, Plato,
Aristotle, Archimedes, Socrates, Greek
impacted economic development.
Gods/Goddesses, Caesar, Christians, etc.

Important Places: Mount Olympus, The Parthenon,
Appian Way, etc.

Important Events: The Twelve Tables, Trojan War,
Peloponnesian War, Punic Wars, etc.