7th Grade Social Studies
Weeks
Curriculum
Units
Essential Questions
Updated April 2014
Lesson Sequence
(hover over link to
access resources)
3 weeks
7 weeks
4 weeks
5 weeks
4 weeks
4 weeks
5 weeks
Vocabulary/Key
Concepts
Unit 1: Geography of 1.What are the significant physical and human 1:Exploring Maps of the Eastern Hemisphere
climate, fundamental themes of
the Eastern Hemisphere characteristics of the Eastern Hemisphere?
2:Landforms, Bodies of Water and Vegetation of the Eastern
geography, geographic tools and
2.How is the geography of the Eastern
Hemisphere
technologies, human characteristics,
Hemisphere different from the geography of the 3:Climate Regions of the Eastern Hemisphere
human/environment interaction,
Western Hemisphere? How is it alike?
4:Human Characteristics of the Eastern Hemisphere
physical characteristics, population
3.How have humans used, adapted to, and
5:Population Patterns of the Eastern Hemisphere
patterns, region
modified different environments in the Eastern 6:Human/Environment Interaction in the Western Hemisphere
Hemisphere?
7:Putting it All Together: Geography of Planet Earth
1.Why is it important to treat maps and "history"
1. What are Maps?
Unit 2: An
close-reading, contextualizing,
as accounts?
2. What Can a Map Tell Us?
Introduction to
corroborating, event, evidence,
2.How do historians know and create accounts about 3. What Does History Mean?
World History
framing, geographic features,
the past?
4. How Do Historians Create Accounts of Past Events
historical argument, historical
3.Why might historians have different and
5. What Process Do Historians Use to Investigate the Past?
problem, history
sometimes conflicting versions of the same event? 6..Tools to Organize and Analyze the Past-Establishing
perspective, primary sources,
Significance
representations/accounts,
7. Tools to Organize and Analyze the Past - Using Social
secondary sources, significance,
Institutions
8. Tools to Organize and Analyze the Past - Using Temoral Frames social institutions, sourcing,
spatial scales, temporal frames
9:.Tools to Organize and Analyze the Past - Using Spatial Scales
(time)
10. History as a Discipline
11. Challenging the Power the Authority of the History Textbook
1. Introducing Reading Strategies
Unit 3: Beginnings
1.How do we learn about humans and human
adaptation, agriculture,
2. The Study of Prehistory
of Human Societies
ancestors in pre-historic times, before there was 3. Anthropology and Early Humans
domestication, evidence,
writing?
evolution, foraging, meta
4. The Peopling of the Earth
2.How and why did humanity spread across the 5. The Paleolithic Age
cognition, migration, Neolithic
earth?
Era, Paleolithic Era, settlement,
6. The Agricultural Revolution
3.How did the natural environment shape the
social, institutions,
7. Neolithic Settlement, Surplus, Specialization, and Social
ways people lived in the Paleolithic Era?
specialization, world history
Institutions
4.How and why did many humans begin to shift 8. Global Patterns of Early Human Settlement
from full-time foraging to living in settled
villages?
1.What are Civilizations?
2.The Early River Valley Civilizations
3.What Were Early Civilizations Like?
4.How did Intensification Lead to the Development of
Writing,Laws, and Centralized Governments in Early
Civilizations?
5.Who Were the Nomadic Pastoralists and How Did They Live?
6.The Technology of Era 2... Spinning the Wheels of the Bronze
Age
7.Interaction in Era 2 – Conflict and Cooperation
The Human Story Outside of Afroeurasia - Historical Patterns in
8.Different World Zones
1.Unit Overview: From Early Civilizations to Empires
1.Why did some civilizations develop into largeUnit 5: The Rise of
2.What is the recipe for empire? A comparative analysis of Era 3
scale empires while others did not?
Classical Empires
2.How and why did changes in social institutions empires
and ... (Era 3)
3.How did empires wield power and authority?
change how people lived in large-scale empires?
4.Social Hierarchy and Slavery in the age of Empires
3.How did empires change exchanges between
5.The Emergence and Spread of World Religions
peoples across large expanses of territory?
4.How did the emergence of world religions both 6.From Religious Tolerance to Book Burning - Leadership in the
Empires
influence and reflect the rise of empires?
7.Connections and Contacts in Era 3: Exchanging ideas,
technologies, and goods in the age of empire
8.Empire... what it is, and what it is not: Using non-examples to
refine the concept
1.How did the interaction between empires affect 1. The Han Dynasty: The rise of a Chinese Empire, 206 BCE to
Unit 6: Interactions,
220 CE
the Fall of Empires & their growth and development?
2.What were the most significant factors that
2. The Glory of Rome - The Roman Empire at its Height
Other...
enabled empires to stay in power and why did these 3. The Kushan Empire: A Nomadic Empire at the Crossroads
empires eventually fall?
4. The Mayans – A different global pattern
3.What other patterns of human societies and
5. The Golden Age of the Gupta: Why and to what extent was it
organization were in place during this era and why “Golden”?
did they not become empires or parts of empires? 6. Why do empires collapse? - A comparative case study of the
decline and fall of Era 3...
7. Turning Points and Other Stories: The World at the End of the
Age of Empire
1.Why did the Civil Rights Movement intensify
1. The Prologue to Brown: Life Under Plessey
Unit 7: Era III: World
after World War II?
2. The Influence of World War II, Cold War, and Television
Religions
2.How did individuals and groups use political,
3. Brown v. Board of Education
legal, and social means to strive for freedom and
4. The Civil Rights Movement: Leadership and Organizations
equality?
5. Coming to a Boil - White Resistance
3.How successful was the Civil Rights movement? 6. Legislating Civil Rights
7. Comparing Ideals - The Declaration of Independence and Civil
Rights Movement
Unit 4: Early
Civilizations & the
Emergence of ...
1.How did geography shape the way in which
people lived in various world zones during Era
2?
2.How and why did civilizations develop during
Era 2?
3.What new problems and solutions emerged
from living in civilizations during Era 2?
4.What role did cultural diffusion play during
Era 2?
cities, civilization, conflict and
cooperation, cultural diffusion,
evidence, geographic luck,
intensification, nomadic
pastoralism, power and
authority, river valley
civilizations, social hierarchy,
specialization, technology,
world zones, writing
bureaucracy, collective learning,
cultural diffusion, democracy,
empire / emperor, leadership,
militarism, monarchy, nonexamples, philosophy, power and,
authority, religious tolerance,
republic, right to rule (divine right,
inherited power), rise and fall of
empires, Silk Roads, slavery, social,
hierarchy/class, social inequality,
society, specialization of labor,
trade networks, world religions
causes and consequences, citystate, civil service, civilization,
Confuscianism, cultural diffusion,
dynasty, empire, environmental
circumstances/geographic luck, fall
or decline of empires, Golden Age,
historical significance, innovation,
patriarchy, social hierarchy, class
system, trade networks, turning
point
civil disobedience, civil rights,
equality, federalism, idealism,
individual freedom, protest
movements, resistance, segregation,
suffrage
ASSESSMENTS:
Formative: responding to essential questions, short articles, and in-class debates
Summative: Common Assessment given at the end of each unit (combination of multiple choice, infographics, short answer , and essay based on reading passage or focus
question.