World History and Geography: Ancient
Civilizations
Students
in grade
six expand their understanding
of history by studying the people and events that ushered in the dawn
of the major Western and non-Western ancient civilizations. Geography
is of special significance in the development of the human story.
Continued emphasis is placed on the everyday lives, problems, and
accomplishments of people, their role in developing social, economic,
and political structures, as well as in establishing and spreading
ideas that helped transform the world forever. Students develop higher
levels of critical thinking by considering why civilizations developed
where and when they did, why they became dominant, and why they
declined. Students analyze the interactions among the various cultures,
emphasizing their enduring contributions and the link, despite time,
between the contemporary and ancient worlds.
Students will do several group and
individual
research projects and presentations.
6.1 Students describe what is
known through
archaeological studies of the early physical and cultural development
of humankind from the Paleolithic era to the agricultural revolution.
- Describe the hunter-gatherer
societies,
including the development of tools and the use of fire.
- Identify the locations of human
communities
that populated the major regions of the world and describe how humans
adapted to a variety of environments.
- Discuss the climatic changes and
human
modifications of the physical environment that gave rise to the
domestication of plants and animals and new sources of clothing and
shelter.
6.2 Students analyze the
geographic,
political,
economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations
of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Kush.
- Locate and describe the
major river
systems and
discuss the physical settings that supported permanent settlement and
early civilizations.
- Trace the development of
agricultural
techniques that permitted the production of economic surplus and the
emergence of cities as centers of culture and power.
- Understand the relationship
between
religion
and the social and political order in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
- Know the significance of
Hammurabi's
Code.
- Discuss the main features of
Egyptian
art and
architecture.
- Describe the role of
Egyptian trade in
the
eastern Mediterranean and Nile valley.
- Understand the significance
of Queen
Hatshepsut
and Ramses the Great.
- Identify the location of the
Kush
civilization
and describe its political, commercial, and cultural relations with
Egypt.
- Trace the evolution of
language and its
written
forms.
6.3 Students analyze the
geographic,
political,
economic, religious, and social structures of the Ancient Hebrews.
- Describe the origins and
significance of
Judaism as the first monotheistic religion based on the concept of one
God who sets down moral laws for humanity.
- Identify the sources of the
ethical
teachings
and central beliefs of Judaism (the Hebrew Bible, the Commentaries):
belief in God, observance of law, practice of the concepts of
righteousness and justice, and importance of study; and describe how
the ideas of the Hebrew traditions are reflected in the moral and
ethical traditions of Western civilization.
- Explain the significance of
Abraham,
Moses,
Naomi, Ruth, David, and Yohanan ben Zaccai in the development of the
Jewish religion.
- Discuss the locations of the
settlements
and
movements of Hebrew peoples, including the Exodus and their movement to
and from Egypt, and outline the significance of the Exodus to the
Jewish and other people.
- Discuss how Judaism survived
and
developed
despite the continuing dispersion of much of the Jewish population from
Jerusalem and the rest of Israel after the destruction of the second
Temple in A.D. 70.
 6.4
Students
analyze
the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social
structures of the early civilizations of Ancient Greece.
- Discuss the connections
between
geography and
the development of city-states in the region of the Aegean Sea,
including patterns of trade and commerce among Greek city-states and
within the wider Mediterranean region.
- Trace the transition from
tyranny and
oligarchy
to early democratic forms of government and back to dictatorship in
ancient Greece, including the significance of the invention of the idea
of citizenship (e.g., from Pericles' Funeral Oration).
- State the key differences
between
Athenian, or
direct, democracy and representative democracy.
- Explain the significance of
Greek
mythology to
the everyday life of people in the region and how Greek literature
continues to permeate our literature and language today, drawing from
Greek mythology and epics, such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey,
and from Aesop's Fables.
- Outline the founding,
expansion, and
political
organization of the Persian Empire.
- Compare and contrast life in
Athens and
Sparta,
with emphasis on their roles in the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars.
- Trace the rise of Alexander
the Great
and the
spread of Greek culture eastward and into Egypt.
- Describe the enduring
contributions of
important Greek figures in the arts and sciences (e.g., Hypatia,
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Thucydides).
 6.5
Students
analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and
social structures of the early civilizations of India.
- Locate and describe the
major river
system and
discuss the physical setting that sup-ported the rise of this
civilization.
- Discuss the significance of
the Aryan
invasions.
- Explain the major beliefs
and practices
of
Brahmanism in India and how they evolved into early Hinduism.
- Outline the social structure
of the
caste
system.
- Know the life and moral
teachings of
Buddha and
how Buddhism spread in India, Ceylon, and Central Asia.
- Describe the growth of the
Maurya empire
and
the political and moral achievements of the emperor Asoka.
- Discuss important aesthetic
and
intellectual
traditions (e.g., Sanskrit literature, including the Bhagavad
Gita; medicine; metallurgy; and mathematics, including
Hindu-Arabic numerals and the zero).
 6.6
Students
analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and
social structures of the early civilizations of China.
- Locate and describe the
origins of
Chinese
civilization in the Huang-He Valley during the Shang Dynasty.
- Explain the geographic
features of China
that
made governance and the spread of ideas and goods difficult and served
to isolate the country from the rest of the world.
- Know about the life of
Confucius and the
fundamental teachings of Confucianism and Taoism.
- Identify the political and
cultural
problems
prevalent in the time of Confucius and how he sought to solve them.
- List the policies and
achievements of
the
emperor Shi Huangdi in unifying northern China under the Qin Dynasty.
- Detail the political
contributions of
the Han
Dynasty to the development of the imperial bureaucratic state and the
expansion of the empire.
- Cite the significance of the
trans-Eurasian
"silk roads" in the period of the Han Dynasty and Roman Empire and
their locations.
- Describe the diffusion of
Buddhism
northward to
China during the Han Dynasty.
 6.7
Students
analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social
structures during the development of Rome.
- Identify the location and
describe the
rise of
the Roman Republic, including the importance of such mythical and
historical figures as Aeneas, Romulus and Remus, Cincinnatus, Julius
Caesar, and Cicero.
- Describe the government of
the Roman
Republic
and its significance (e.g., written constitution and tripartite
government, checks and balances, civic duty).
- Identify the location of and
the
political and
geographic reasons for the growth of Roman territories and expansion of
the empire, including how the empire fostered economic growth through
the use of currency and trade routes.
- Discuss the influence of
Julius Caesar
and
Augustus in Rome's transition from republic to empire.
- Trace the migration of Jews
around the
Mediterranean region and the effects of their conflict with the Romans,
including the Romans' restrictions on their right to live in Jerusalem.
- Note the origins of
Christianity in the
Jewish
Messianic prophecies, the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as
described in the New Testament, and the contribution of St. Paul the
Apostle to the definition and spread of Christian beliefs (e.g., belief
in the Trinity, resurrection, salvation).
- Describe the circumstances
that led to
the
spread of Christianity in Europe and other Roman territories.
- Discuss the legacies of
Roman art and
architecture, technology and science, literature, language, and law.
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