Possible Big Ideas from Third-Grade Social Studies

Possible Big Ideas from Third-Grade Social Studies

Ancient Civilizations of Greece, Rome, and Mali

Ancient civilizations have influenced our lives today.

Essential Questions:

• How does the past influence our lives today? How will future civilizations be influenced by ours? And those before ours?
• How does history help us make decisions?

People have to adapt to or change parts of the region where they live or they may have to leave it. Different regions have different types resources that can influence what people have access to, what jobs they have or skills they develop, or how they interact (trade) with people from other regions.

Essential Questions:

• What makes a place a good place to live? What can you do when you can’t find everything you need in the place where you live?
• How does where you live influence who you are? Or who you (or your family members) become?
• What makes a good trade? Or a bad one? When should you trade? What’s the best way to make the most out of a trade?

The ancient Greeks and Romans were two groups of people who made significant contributions to society in terms of architecture, government, and sports.The ancient Greeks and Romans (and Mali) have influenced the lives of people today.

Mali became one of the largest and wealthiest empires in the region (West Africa) and was an important trade center.Mali lay across the trade routes between the sources of salt in the Sahara Desert and the gold region/mines of West Africa. Timbuktu was an important city in Mali. It had a famous university with a large library containing Greek and Roman books.

People adapt to their environment in different ways. How did the people of ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and Mali adapt to and/or change their environment to meet their needs?

Resources are used to produce goods and services. Producers of goods and services are influenced by natural, human, and capital resources. People and regions specialize because they cannot produce everything they want. People trade for things they need and want but do not have.

Ancient Greece and Rome had access to the sea (natural resource), so they used their human and capital resources to produce ships (goods), which they used for transportation (service) in trading. Mali used human and capital resources to mine gold (natural resource).

Resources and Trade

Resources are used to produce goods and services. Producers of goods and services are influenced by natural, human, and capital resources. People and regions specialize because they cannot produce everything they want. People trade for things they need and want but do not have.

Ancient Greece and Rome had access to the sea (natural resource), so they used their human and capital resources to produce ships (goods), which they used for transportation (service) in trading. Mali used human and capital resources to mine gold (natural resource).

First Explorers

The first explorers had different motivations, had different sponsors, and met different successes.

Due to European explorations, American Indians experienced changes to their cultures and environment.

Essential Questions:

• Why do people explore new places? What motivates them?
• How does the period in history influence exploration? How can exploration be both a good thing and a bad thing?

Map Skills

Identify and locate features on a map and globe. Locate places on maps, using a simple letter-number grid system.Identify and locate continents, oceans, and major features on maps and globes.

Draw maps of familiar areas.

Maps, tables, graphs, charts, and pictures can be read and constructed to gather and display information.Maps are used to display information geographically.

Essential Questions:

• What do maps tell us? How can we use maps to explain our lives? The world we live in? What’s the best way to share information? What’s the right type of display for different information?

Task Ideas

Students should be able to relate the contributions and possibly some characteristics of ancient Greek, Roman, and Mali civilizations to our lives today. They may be given the opportunity to identify some contributions that can still be found today (because the SOLs require remembering and understanding, not application or analysis). Perhaps there is some way to tie in resources available in a current civilization, like Virginia, and relate it to how people in other civilizations might have reacted based on the idea of using natural resources or establishing trade?

The highest level SOLs relate to creating a map, so perhaps the task could require the students to create some kind of information on a map, perhaps gathering it from tables, graphs, charts, or pictures? (Check out the Google social studies feature.) They should be required to use a simple letter-number grid system and perhaps identify major features on the maps they create. Trade routes—possibly new trade routes—might be one way to tie some of these concepts together.

The first explorers seem to be an outlier in this first set of SOLs and they only require recall tasks. May not be the best fit for a performance task.