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MCS Social Studies Standards
Standard #1:
Students should be able to analyze and discuss different forms of government and the influences of government on the lives of people.
This standard provides opportunities for students to develop civic competence through many activities. They are coached in tracing the historical development of power, authority, and governance and the ways these function in the United States and in other parts of the world in protecting the rights of citizens. When students work individually and cooperatively in examining the purposes and characteristics of various systems of government, they are able to identify how real or potential conflicts arise and to make sound decisions relative to what efforts should be exerted to effect peaceful conflict resolution. When students create hypothetical governments which depict lawmaking processes and leadership selections, they set goals and identify the steps and resources necessary to attain the goals. This requires a high level of perseverance. When students work with team members from diverse backgrounds, they receive insights into what laws are needed for the preservation of individual and group rights, and demonstrate problem solving skills.
Specific Expectations
1. Compare, contrast, and assess the influences of various types of government in different times and places.
2. Evaluate efforts by nations to provide government services to achieve such goals as conflict resolution, order and security, institutional justice, civil liberties, and economic development.
3. Describe national and local government efforts to identify needs of the local community.
4. Evaluate the effects of documents, laws, customs, and traditions on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and on the power of exercising citizen's rights.
Standard #2:
Students should be able to interpret social systems of different cultures, based on a knowledge of their arts, religions, and philosophies.
This standard provides opportunities for students to recognize both differences and similarities in society. In an effort to appreciate and celebrate this diversity, students will have opportunities to identify and demonstrate in a variety of ways their knowledge of basic concerns that are common to all cultures and ways in which these concerns are addressed. Steps toward addressing these concerns may include working with team members from diverse backgrounds and locating and organizing different kinds of information through research to accomplish group goals.
A study of the common beliefs of basic philosophies and religions will sharpen students' ability to work cooperatively with different ethnic groups, different age groups, and opposite genders and will aid them in resisting the temptation to make judgments that stifle communication and cooperation.
Creating and performing skits and producing artistic and technical displays reflecting unity and diversity will help students make the connection between artistic expression and historical and social concerns.
Specific Expectations
1. Analyze and explain ways in which groups, societies, and cultures address human needs and concerns, as defined through their arts, religion, and philosophies.
2. Tell how the actions of people and cultures of various times and places are influenced by basic beliefs and/or religions.
3. Analyze how diversity, intolerance, and cultural differences can lead to peace, conflict, or mis-understanding.
4. Analyze connections between artistic expression and a culture's religion and philosophies, as a way of understanding a society and its history.
Standard #3:
Students should be able to analyze the impact of location and the interactions between the environment and people across continents.
This standard provides opportunities for students to make vicarious trips around the world and into different time periods and, thereby, experience the impact of location and environment on life in all times and places. Much of the activity implied in this standard is that of productivity. Students work individually and cooperatively using various technological, electronic, and print media to generate geographic tools reflecting many types of information. One use of technology is the Internet through which students connect themselves at all levels to the world beyond their personal locations. The cooperative use of the technology helps students to solve challenging problems and to work with team members from diverse backgrounds. As students move through the advanced years, they explore the core geographic themes and address via written and oral communication issues of domestic and international significance. The communication skill is further developed when students describe, differentiate, and explain relationships among various regional and global patterns of geographic phenomena such as landforms, soils, climate vegetation, natural resources, and population.
Specific Expectations
1. Investigate the characteristics, distribution, and migration of human populations on the earth's surface.
2. Present and analyze geographical facts that illustrate the relationship between geography and the history and economy of a place, using geographical and technological tools to generate, interpret, and display information.
3. Evaluate the relationships that exist among various geographical patterns, related to location, place, movement, and regions.
4. Identify and compare the physical, human, and cultural characteristics of different regions and people.
Standard #4:
Students should be able to predict world conditions, based on a knowledge of past and present social, political, and economic conditions.
This is the standard that focuses on history and its implications for continuity and change. The content of this standard challenges students to reason and solve problems. They will compare, contrast, and evaluate the development of historical events, phenomena, and figures in various locations and time periods. Students will engage in communication skills in every aspect of the attainment of this standard. Simulations, debates, paraphrases, and other means of sharing information reinforce communication skills. Historical understanding is linked closely with political and economic systems and incorporates the arts and humanities, thereby challenging students to integrate and transfer learning.
This standard provides opportunities for students to read with comprehension and identify main points expressed in written texts. Students are challenged to read and interpret history from the pens of various historians and to note perspectives from which history is written in order to make sound judgments and predictions. They will engage in group and individual research and composition and thereby sharpen their communication skills in written and spoken forms.
Specific Expectations
1. Analyze and evaluate change and continuity in world events through an understanding of historical concepts, such as time, chronology, cause and effect, spatial relationships, and conflict.
2. Analyze changes within and among cultures during different historical periods and predict the effects of these changes.
3. Analyze and evaluate the relationship between history and geography in addressing issues of domestic and international significance.
4. Predict future events based on analysis of contemporary viewpoints concerning local, state, national, and international issues.
Standard #5:
Students should be able to make sound financial decisions based on a knowledge of different economies and economic systems.
This standard focuses primarily on reasoning and communication. They are provided innumerable opportunities to study the implications of economic decision-making with emphasis on the economic reasons behind the decisions. Reasoning is further demonstrated when students compare different proposals for dealing with contemporary social issues such as unemployment, health care, or quality education. Many opportunities to communicate are embodied in this standard. Students will be continually communicating by describing, explaining, contrasting, comparing, and evaluating, in written and oral presentations, economic actions taken by individuals institutions and groups. The use of technology to access, use, and display information provides both the stimulation and the facility for discriminating between effective and ineffective economic practices. Simulating businesses and stock market participation will further sharpen students' reasoning and productivity and will provide opportunities to develop the social skills needed for working cooperatively with diverse groups and individuals.
Specific Expectations
1. Analyze how economic systems have affected individual economic benefits and the common good.
2. Distinguish among domestic economies, evaluating their effectiveness and usefulness for individual financial management.
3. Evaluate the relationship between individual financial management and changing domestic and global economic policies.
4. Compare and contrast the role of personal financial management and decision-making within different economic systems, such as capitalism, socialism, and communism.