Course Standards
General Course Information and Notes
General Notes
The social studies curriculum for this course consists of the following content area strands: American History, Geography, Economics, Civics and Government. The primary content for this course pertains to the usage of geographic concepts, tools, and skills to draw conclusions about economic activity and patterns in the United States. Content should include, but not be limited to, interpreting economic activity in terms of location, population, demographics, historical change, and land use. Students will study methods of historical inquiry and primary and secondary historical documents.Mathematics Benchmark Guidance: Social Studies instruction should include opportunities for students to interpret and create representations of historical events and concepts using mathematical tables, charts, and graphs.
Instructional Practices: Teaching from well-written, grade-level instructional materials enhances students’ content area knowledge and also strengthens their ability to comprehend longer, complex reading passages on any topic for any reason. Using the following instructional practices also helps student learning:
- Reading assignments from longer text passages as well as shorter ones when text is extremely complex.
- Making close reading and rereading of texts central to lessons.
- Asking high-level, text-specific questions and requiring high-level, complex tasks and assignments.
- Requiring students to support answers with evidence from the text.
- Providing extensive text-based research and writing opportunities (claims and evidence).
General Information
Student Resources
Original Student Tutorials
Investigate the limiting factors of a Florida ecosystem and describe how these limiting factors affect one native population-the Florida Scrub-Jay-with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn what genetic engineering is and some of the applications of this technology. In this interactive tutorial, you’ll gain an understanding of some of the benefits and potential drawbacks of genetic engineering. Ultimately, you’ll be able to think critically about genetic engineering and write an argument describing your own perspective on its impacts.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Practice identifying and examining the evidence used to support a specific argument. In this interactive tutorial, you'll read several short texts about the exploration of Mars to practice distinguishing relevant from irrelevant evidence. You'll also practice determining whether the evidence presented is sufficient or insufficient.
Type: Original Student Tutorial