MSAD
#55
Social
Studies
Benchmarks/Performance
Indicators
Social
Studies Skills A-M
Grade
3
12-19-05
A. Students will understand the rights and responsibilities of civic life and will employ the skills of effective civic participation. Students will:
1. Identify
important individual rights (e.g., freedom of religion, speech, ownership of
property).
q
a. Generate a set of classroom rules.
q
b. Participate in meetings.
q
c. Identify behaviors necessary for a
democratic society.
2. Explain
why certain responsibilities of democratic society such as voting are
important.
q
a. Engage in class voting in the
classroom.
q
b. Discuss what would happen without
rules.
D. Students will understand the political relationship among the United States and other nations. Students will be able to:
1. Identify
examples of how the United States interacts with other countries (e.g., trade,
treaties).
q
a. Determine things we import and export.
q
b.
Discuss how immigration affects the
dynamics of the country in positive and negative ways.
q
c.
Discuss why people left a country
and came to the United States.
2. Compare
a foreign country to the United States (e.g., communist vs. democracy). Include an analysis of how decision are
made.
q
a. Compare Mexico to the United
States.
q
b. Analyze how decisions are made in
Mexico.
A. Students will use the chronology of history and major eras to demonstrate the relationships of events and people. Students will be able to:
1. Identify
similarities and differences in the characteristics of individuals who have
made significant contributions to society in different eras.
q
a. Identify at least two important
individuals who have made significant contributions to society.
q
b. As a class, create a time line of
important people and major U.S. events.
q
c. Become familiar with important
people: Martin Luther King, Caesar Chevaz, Rosa Parks.
B. Students will develop historical knowledge of major events, people, and enduring themes in the United States, in Maine, and throughout world history. Students will be able to:
1. Make
connections between and among events in their personal lives and those
occurring in the community.
q
a. Report on world news in group time.
q
b. Read a grade level newspaper
(Weekly Reader, Scholastic News, Kind News).
2. Demonstrate
an awareness of major events and people in United States and Maine history
(e.g., Who lives here and how did they get here? (immigrants, demographics, ethnic religions groups),
important people in United States and Maine history, different kinds of
communities in Maine and in the United States).
q
a. Participate in classroom
discussions and activities in westward expansions.
q
b. Discuss where immigrants came from
and where they went.
q
c. Discuss/write about illegal
immigration and why we have laws about it.
C. Students will learn to evaluate resource material such as documents, artifacts, maps, artwork, and literature, and to make judgments about the perspectives of the authors and their credibility when interpreting current historical events. Students will be able to:
1. Identify
changes currently occurring in their daily lives and compare these to changes
in daily life during a specific historic era.
q
a. Compare and contrast their life
with a major historical fiction character, (Little House, MollyÕs Pilgrim,
American Girls, Jean Lowry NixonÕs Orphan Train Series.)
A. Students will know how to construct and interpret maps and use globes and other geographic tools to locate and derive information about people, places, regions, and environments. Students will be able to:
1. Construct
and compare maps of Maine, the United States, and regions of the world to
interpret geographical feature and draw conclusions; about physical patterns.
q
a. Describe what a compass rose is and
create a map with a compass rose.
q
b. Identify different types of maps
(political, globe, regional, etc.)
q
c. Identify continents, major
countries and oceans
2. Locate
major cities of the world and discuss in current events.
q
a. Read weekly (age appropriate) periodicals (Scholastic News, Weekly Reader) that
discuss current events and locate major cities pertaining to those articles.
q
b. Become familiar with the geography
of the world through daily oral geography and various geography activities
B. Students will understand and analyze the relationship among people and their physical environment. Students will be able to:
1.
Demonstrate an understanding of why
certain areas of the world are more densely populated than others.
q
a. Identify a humanÕs basic wants and
needs in determining population density in certain locations.
q
b. Identify determining factors for
population density: location,
resources, weather, immigration.
2. Explain
ways in which communities reflect the backgrounds of their inhabitants.
q
a. Identify how heritage affects
communities.
3. Use
a variety of materials and geographic tools to explain how the physical
environment supports and constrains human activities (e.g., explain how the founders
of a settlement might have evaluated a site, in terms of its resources and
environmental characteristics, relative to their needs.
q
a. Identify and use all parts of a
map. (key, compass rose, symbols)
q
b. Discuss why founders settled around
natural resources.
A. Students will understand that economic decisions are based on the availability of resources and the costs and benefits of choices. Students will be able to:
2. Identify
a situation in which a personal decision is made about the use of scarce
resources (e.g., deciding to use allowance to go to the movies instead of
buying a gift for a family member).
q
a. Identify scarce resources and ways
to conserve those resources.
q
b. Discuss choices that they make
about scarce resources and future affects of their decisions.
C. Students will analyze how different economic systems function and change over time. Students will be able to:
1. Explain
how selected cultures of countries meet basic human needs.
q
a. Explain how different peoples meet
their basic needs.
D. Students will understand the patterns and results of international trade. Students will be able to:
1. Describe,
with examples how the exchange of goods and services helps to create economic
interdependence between people in different places and countries. (This area needs to be strengthened).
q
a. Identify resources that people
need.