St. Rose School
Social Studies/History Curriculum Standards
June 2003
Grade
2
People Who Make a Difference
Students in grade two explore the lives of actual people who make a difference
in their everyday lives and learn the stories of extraordinary people from history
whose achievements have touched them, directly or indirectly. The study of contemporary
people who supply goods and services aids in understanding the complex interdependence
in our free-market system.
Students differentiate between
things that happened long ago and things that happened yesterday.
- Trace the history of a family
through the use of primary and secondary sources, including artifacts, photographs,
interviews, and documents.
- Compare and contrast their daily
lives with those of their parents, grandparents, and/ or guardians.
- Place important events in their
lives in the order in which they occurred (e.g., on a time line or storyboard).
Students demonstrate map
skills by describing the absolute and relative locations of people, places,
and environments.
- Locate on a simple letter-number
grid system the specific locations and geographic features in their neighborhood
or community (e.g., map of the classroom, the school).
- Label from memory a simple map
of the North American continent, including the countries, oceans, Great Lakes,
major rivers, and mountain ranges. Identify the essential map elements: title,
legend, directional indicator, scale, and date.
- Locate on a map where their ancestors
live( d), telling when the family moved to the local community and how and
why they made the trip.
- Compare and contrast basic land
use in urban, suburban, and rural environments in California.
Students explain governmental
institutions and practices in the United States and other countries.
- Explain how the United States
and other countries make laws, carry out laws, determine whether laws have
been violated, and punish wrongdoers.
- Describe the ways in which groups
and nations interact with one another to try to resolve problems in such areas
as trade, cultural contacts, treaties, diplomacy, and military force.
Students understand basic
economic concepts and their individual roles in the economy and demonstrate
basic economic reasoning skills.
- Describe food production and consumption
long ago and today, including the roles of farmers, processors, distributors,
weather, and land and water resources.
- Understand the role and interdependence
of buyers (consumers) and sellers (producers) of goods and services.
- Understand how limits on resources
affect production and consumption (what to produce and what to consume).
Students understand the importance
of individual action and character and explain how heroes from long ago and
the recent past have made a difference in others' lives (e.g., from biographies
of Abraham Lincoln, Louis Pasteur, Sitting Bull, George Washington Carver, Marie
Curie, Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, Jackie Robinson, Sally Ride).