Civilizations, Knowledge Systems & the Human Story
Objectives
- D08.S1.07.01 Explain why historians divide time into periods and compare two different calendars or ways of counting years used by different peoples.
- D08.S1.07.02 Analyze the multiple causes and consequences of one major change, such as the spread of an invention or a large migration.
- D08.S2.07.01 Analyze a scientific or technological achievement from a non-European civilization, such as in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, or engineering, and its effect on the world.
- D08.S2.07.02 Compare how two different knowledge systems, such as indigenous ecological knowledge and formal science, understand and care for the natural world.
- D08.S3.07.01 Compare voluntary and forced migration and analyze their causes and effects on the people who moved and the places involved.
- D08.S3.07.02 Explain how geography, such as rivers, oceans, deserts, and mountains, helped connect or separate peoples and shaped the spread of ideas and goods.
- D08.S4.07.01 Analyze forms of resistance, such as protest, boycott, refusal, art, and storytelling, and how people choose among them.
- D08.S4.07.02 Explain how colonization affected colonized peoples, including loss of land, culture, and self-rule, with care and accuracy.
Essential questions
- Why do historians divide time into periods, and how do different peoples count the years?
- What are the many causes and consequences of great changes, and what has non-European achievement given the world?
- How do knowledge systems, migration, geography, resistance, and colonization shape the human story?
Big ideas
- Time is divided and counted differently by different peoples, and great changes have many causes and consequences.
- Non-European civilizations achieved much in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and engineering, and different knowledge systems each understand and care for the natural world.
- Migration, geography, resistance, and colonization have shaped peoples and places, and their stories deserve care and accuracy.
Lessons
- 1 Why Historians Divide Time into Periods 50 minutes
- 2 Calendars: Many Ways to Count the Years 50 minutes
- 3 Many Causes, Many Consequences 50 minutes
- 4 The Spread of Paper 50 minutes
- 5 Zero: A Number That Changed the World 50 minutes
- 6 The Canon of Medicine and the Bimaristans 50 minutes
- 7 Two Knowledge Systems: Fire and the Forest 50 minutes
- 8 Choosing to Move, Forced to Move 50 minutes
- 9 Rivers, Oceans, Deserts, Mountains 50 minutes
- 10 Ways People Resist 50 minutes
- 11 What Colonization Took 50 minutes
- 12 The Human Story, from Many Sides 50 minutes
Assessment plan
Observation of time-and-calendar comparison, cause-and-consequence analysis, and knowledge-system comparison; a non-European achievement study, a migration analysis, a resistance-forms analysis, and a colonization-effects reflection as portfolio artifacts.
Unit 9 — Civilizations, Knowledge Systems & the Human Story
Overview
This unit steps into the wider human story with the tools of the historian, building on Grade 6’s primary-and-secondary sources, power, and movements for rights. Learners explain why historians divide time into periods and compare two different calendars or ways of counting years used by different peoples, and analyze the multiple causes and consequences of one major change, such as the spread of an invention or a large migration. They analyze a scientific or technological achievement from a non-European civilization — mathematics, astronomy, medicine, engineering — and its effect on the world, and compare how two different knowledge systems, such as indigenous ecological knowledge and formal science, understand and care for the natural world. They compare voluntary and forced migration and analyze their causes and effects, explain how geography — rivers, oceans, deserts, mountains — helped connect or separate peoples and shaped the spread of ideas and goods, analyze forms of resistance — protest, boycott, refusal, art, storytelling — and how people choose among them, and explain how colonization affected colonized peoples, including loss of land, culture, and self-rule, with care and accuracy. History is told as a global story from many perspectives, never one people’s triumph.
Essential questions
- Why do historians divide time into periods, and how do different peoples count the years?
- What are the many causes and consequences of great changes, and what has non-European achievement given the world?
- How do knowledge systems, migration, geography, resistance, and colonization shape the human story?
Lessons
| Lesson | Title | Standards |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Why Historians Divide Time into Periods | D08.S1.07.01 |
| 2 | Calendars: Many Ways to Count the Years | D08.S1.07.01 |
| 3 | Many Causes, Many Consequences | D08.S1.07.02 |
| 4 | The Spread of Paper | D08.S1.07.02 |
| 5 | Zero: A Number That Changed the World | D08.S2.07.01 |
| 6 | The Canon of Medicine and the Bimaristans | D08.S2.07.01 |
| 7 | Two Knowledge Systems: Fire and the Forest | D08.S2.07.02 |
| 8 | Choosing to Move, Forced to Move | D08.S3.07.01 |
| 9 | Rivers, Oceans, Deserts, Mountains | D08.S3.07.02 |
| 10 | Ways People Resist | D08.S4.07.01 |
| 11 | What Colonization Took | D08.S4.07.02 |
| 12 | The Human Story, from Many Sides | D08.S1.07.01, D08.S2.07.02, D08.S3.07.01, D08.S4.07.01, D08.S4.07.02 |