History is the study and analysis of the past. Built upon a foundation of historical knowledge, history seeks to analyze the past in order to describe the relationship between historical facts, concepts, and generalizations. History draws upon cause and effect relationships within multiple social narratives to help explain complex human interactions. Understanding the past provides context for the present and implications for the future.
Kindergarten-Grade 2
Essential Concepts and/or Skills
- Understand past, present, and future time in relation to historical events.
- Understand that primary sources such as artifacts, photographs, and documents are used to learn about the past.
- Understand timelines.
- Understand that people in different times and places view the world differently.
- Understand the need for government and how our government came to be.
- Understand national symbols through which American values and principles are expressed.
- Understand factors that contribute to disputes or cooperation in groups and nations.
- Understand cultures influence society and government.
- Understand reasons groups of people moved into and within the United States long ago and today.
- Understand the different roles of majority and minority groups in society.
- Understand the roles historic and ordinary Americans have played in changing society and government.
- Understand ways science and technology have changed the lives of people.
- Understand changes in values, beliefs, and attitudes have resulted in technological and scientific knowledge.
- Understand that changes in society may or may not be beneficial.
- Understand the differences between needs and wants.
- Understand the need for public and private goods and services and the workers who provide them.
- Understand the development of technological innovations and their economic effects.
- Understand changes in transportation and communication and their effects.
- Understand that science and technology can affect physical environments.
- Understand why people developed a region.
- Understand that the earth's physical features have changed over time.
- Understand that historical decisions can help inform current public issues.
- Understand historical research methods.
- Understand the difference between fact and fiction.
Grades 3-5
Essential Concepts and/or Skills
- Understand the similarities and differences between various civilizations within a time period.
- Understand problems, issues, and dilemmas of life in the past and their causes.
- Understand differences in life today compared to life in the past
- Understand causes and effects of events within a time period.
- Understand groups and institutions work to meet individual needs and the common good of all.
- Understand that belief systems affect government policies and laws.
- Understand the consequences of governmental decisions.
- Understand ways culture has influenced interactions of various groups.
- Understand ways culture affects decisions of a society, group or individual.
- Understand major historical events and developments that involved interaction among various groups.
- Understand roles of important individuals and groups in technological and scientific fields.
- Understand that specific individuals had a great impact on history
- Understand the people, events, problems, and ideas that were significant in creating the history of their state.
- Understand how democratic values have been exemplified by people, events, and symbols.
- Understands factors that shaped the economic system in the United States.
- Understand that economic activities in the community have changed over time.
- Understand that the types of work local community members do have changed over time.
- Understand varying landforms and geographic features and their importance in the development of communities.
- Understand seasons, climate, and weather, environmental change and crises affect social and economic development.
- Understand major land and water routes of explorers.
- Understand the influence of cultural, scientific, and technological decisions on societies.
- Understand ways science and technology have changed the way people think about the natural world
- Understands that the use of technology in the local community has changed over time.
- Understand processes important to reconstructing and interpreting the past.
- Understand the historical perspective including cause and effect.
- Understand how to view the past in terms of the norms and values of the time.
- Understand interpretation of data in timelines.
Grades 6-8
Essential Concepts and/or Skills
- Understand concepts such as chronology, causality, change, conflict, and complexity.
- Understand historical periods and patterns of change within and across cultures, such as the rise of civilizations, the development of transportation systems, the growth and breakdown of colonial systems, and others.
- Understand political events that shaped the development of governments.
- Understand patterns of nationalism, state-building, religious and social reform.
- Understand ways groups, societies, and cultures have met human needs and concerns in the past.
- Understand how information and experiences from the past may be interpreted by people from diverse cultural perspectives and frames of reference.
- Understand language, literature, the arts, architecture, other artifacts, traditions, beliefs, values, and behaviors have contributed to the development and transmission of culture.
- Understand that specific individuals and the values those individuals held had an impact on history.
- Understand significant events and people, including women and minorities, in the major eras of history.
- Understand economic concepts that help explain historical and current developments and issues in local, national, or global contexts.
- Understand reform, revolution, and social change in the world economy.
- Understand that historical events have been influenced by, and have influenced, physical and human geographic factors in local, regional, national, and global settings.
- Understand the forces of cooperation and conflict that shaped the divisions of Earth's surface.
- Understand geography is used to interpret the past.
- Understand technology has influenced the course of history through revolutions in agriculture, manufacturing, sanitation, medicine, warfare, transportation, information processing, and communication.
- Understand the impact of new inventions and technological developments in various regions of the world.
- Understand processes such as using a variety of sources, providing, validating, and weighing evidence for claims, checking credibility of sources, and searching for causality.
- Understand relationships between and among significant events.
- Understand facts and concepts drawn from history, along with methods of historical inquiry, to inform decision-making about and action-taking on public issues.
- Understand how and why events may be interpreted differently depending upon the perspectives of participants, witnesses, reporters, and historians.
Grades 9-12
Essential Concepts and/or Skills
- Understand concepts such as chronology, causality, change, conflict, and complexity to explain, analyze, and show connections among patterns of historical change and continuity.
- Understand significant historical periods and patterns of change within and across cultures, such as the development of ancient cultures and civilizations, the rise of nation states, and social, economic, and political revolutions.
- Understand patterns of social and cultural continuity in various societies.
- Understand the purpose of government and how its powers have been acquired, used, and justified.
- Understand different political systems from historical periods.
- Understand from a historical perspective the purpose and effects of treaties, alliances, and international organizations that characterize today's interconnected world.
- Understand the ways groups, societies, and cultures have addressed human needs and concerns in the past.
- Understand societal patterns for preserving and transmitting culture while adapting to environmental or social change.
- Understand the value of cultural diversity, as well as cohesion, within and across groups.
- Understand the origins, central ideas, and global influence of world religions
- Understand cultural factors that have promoted political conflict.
- Understand the significance of important people, their work, and their ideas in the areas of political and intellectual leadership, inventions, discoveries, and the arts.
- Understand the role the values of specific people in history played in influencing history.
- Understand the significant religious, philosophical, and social movements and their impacts on society and social reform.
- Understand the effect of "chance events" on history.
- Understand how economic issues have influenced society in the past.
- Understand connections between the cultural achievements of early civilizations and the development of political and economic institutions.
- Understand that choices made by individuals, firms, or government officials often have unintended consequences that can offset the initial effects of the decision.
- Understand that the introduction of new products and production methods by entrepreneurs has impacted economic growth, competition, technological progress, and job opportunities.
- Understand the historical relationship between economic growth, higher production levels, new technologies, and standard of living.
- Understand ways that historical events have been influenced by, and have influenced, physical and human geographic factors in local, regional, national, and global settings.
- Understand reasons for changes in the world's political boundaries.
- Understand the historic reasons for conflicts within specific world regions.
- Understand past government policies designed to change a country's population characteristics.
- Understand significant changes caused by technology, industrialization, urbanization, and population growth and the effects of these changes.
- Understand the historical impact of the interaction and interdependence of science, technology, and society in a variety of cultural settings.
- Understand processes such as using a variety of sources, providing, validating, and weighing evidence for claims, checking credibility of sources, and searching for causality.
- Understand relationships between and among significant events.
- Understand facts and concepts drawn from history, along with methods of historical inquiry, to inform decision-making about and action-taking on public issues.
- Understand the process of critical historical inquiry to reconstruct and reinterpret the past.
- Understand multiple viewpoints within and across cultures related to important events, recurring dilemmas, and issues.
- Understand how and why events may be interpreted differently depending upon the perspectives of participants, witnesses, reporters, and historians.
Iowa Core Social Studies (.pdf)
Iowa Core Social Studies (.doc)