California Social Studies Academic Content Standards Connected to Newspaper Use in the Classroom

Grade Four:

CALIFORNIA: A CHANGING STATE

4.1 Students demonstrate an understanding of the physical and human geographic features that define places and regions in California.

• Use pictures to describe how communities in California vary by land use, vegetation, wildlife, climate, population density, architecture, services and transportation.

4.5 Students understand the structures, functions, and powers of the local, state, and federal governments as described in the U.S. Constitution.

• Describe the similarities and differences among federal, state, and local governments.
• Explain the structures and functions of state governments, including the roles and responsibilities of their elected officials.

Grade Five:

UNITED STATES HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY: MAKING A NEW NATION

Students understand how the principles of the American republic form the basis of a pluralistic society in which individual rights are secured.

5.7 Students analyze the Constitution's significance as the foundation of the American republic.

• Students understand the meaning of the American creed that calls on citizens to safeguard the liberty of individual Americans within a unified nation, to respect the rule of law, and to preserve the Constitution.

Grades Six through Eight:

HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES ANALYSIS SKILLS

Chronological and Spatial Thinking

• Students use a variety of documents to identify physical and cultural features of neighborhoods, cities, states and countries.

Research, Evidence and Point of View

• Students assess the credibility of primary and secondary sources and draw sound conclusions from them.

Historical Interpretation

• Students recognize that interpretations of history are subject to change as new information is uncovered.
• Students interpret basic indicators of economic performance and conduct cost-benefit analyses of economic and political issues.

Grades Nine through Twelve:

HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES ANALYSIS SKILLS

Chronological and Spatial Thinking

• Students use a variety of documents to interpret human movement, including major patterns of domestic and international migration, changing environmental preferences and settlement patterns, the frictions that develop between population groups and the diffusion of ideas, technological innovations and goods.
• Students relate current events to the physical and human characteristics of places and regions.

Historical Research, Evidence and Point of View

• Students construct and test hypotheses; collect, evaluate, and employ information from multiple primary and secondary sources, and apply it in oral and written presentations.

Historical Interpretation

• Students analyze human modifications of landscapes and examine the resulting environmental policy issues.
• Students conduct cost-benefit analyses and apply basic economic indicators to analyze the aggregate economic behavior of the U.S. economy.

Grade Ten:

WORLD HISTORY, CULTURE AND GEOGRAPHY: THE MODERN WORLD

Students develop an understanding of current world issues and relate them to their historical, geographic, political, economic and cultural contexts. Students consider multiple accounts of events in order to understand international relations from a variety of perspectives.

10.11 Students analyze the integration of countries into the world economy and the information, technological and communications revolutions (e.g., television, satellites, computers).

Grade Eleven:

UNITED STATES HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Students consider the major social problems of our time and trace their causes in historical events. They learn that the United States has served as a model for other nations and that the rights and freedoms we enjoy are not accidents, but the results of a defined set of political principles that are not always basic to citizens of other countries.

11.3 Students analyze the role religion played in the founding of America, its lasting moral, social and political impacts, and issues regarding religious liberty.

• Cite incidences of religious intolerance in the United States.

11.9 Students analyze U.S. foreign policy since World War II.

• Describe U.S. Middle East policy and its strategic, political and economic interests.
• Examine relations between the United States and Mexico in the twentieth century, including key economic, political, immigration and environmental issues.

11.11 Students analyze the major social problems and domestic policy issues in contemporary American society.

• Discuss the reasons for the nation's changing immigration policy.
• Trace the impact of, need for, and controversies associated with environmental conservation, expansion of the national park system, and the development of environmental protection laws with particular attention to the interaction between environmental protection advocates and property rights advocates.
• Analyze the persistence of poverty and how different analyses of this issue influence welfare reform, health insurance reform and other social policies.
• Explain how the federal, state and local governments have responded to demographic and social changes such as pollution shifts to the suburbs, racial concentrations in the cities, international migration, decline of family farms, increases in out-of-wedlock births and drug abuse.

Grade Twelve:

PRINCIPLES OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMICS

Students in grade twelve pursue a deeper understanding of the institutions of American government. They compare systems of government in the world today and analyze the history and changing interpretations of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the current state of the legislative, executive and judiciary branches of government.

12.2 Students evaluate and take and defend positions on the scope and limits of rights and obligations as democratic citizens, the relationships among them, and how they are secured.

• Discuss the meaning and importance of each of the rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights and how each is secured (e.g., freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, petition, and privacy.)

12.3 Students evaluate and take and defend positions on what the fundamental values and principles of civil society are, their interdependence and the meaning and importance of those values and principles for a free society.

• Explain how civil society provides opportunities for individuals to associate for social, cultural, religious, economic and political purposes.
• Explain how civil society makes it possible for people, individually or in association with others, to bring their influence to bear on government in ways other than voting and elections.

12.4 Students analyze the unique roles and responsibilities of the three branches of government as established by the U.S. Constitution.

• Identify their current representatives in the legislative branch of the national government.

12.6 Students evaluate issues regarding campaigns for national, state and local elective offices.

• Evaluate the roles of polls, campaign advertising, and the controversies over campaign funding.

12.7 Students analyze and compare the powers and procedures of the national, state, tribal, and local governments.

• Explain how conflicts between levels of government and branches of government are resolved.

12.8 Students evaluate and take and defend positions on the influence of the media on American political life.

• Discuss the meaning and importance of a free and responsible press.
• Describe the roles of broadcast, print and electronic media, including the Internet, as means of communication in American politics.
• Explain how public officials use the media to communicate with the citizenry and to shape public opinion.

PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS

12.2 Students analyze the elements of America's market economy in a global setting.

• Understand the relationship of the concept of incentives of the law of supply and the relationship of the concept of incentives and substitutes to the law of demand.
• Discuss the effects of changes in supply and/or demand on the relative scarcity, price and quantity of particular products.
• Explain how prices reflect the relative scarcity of goods and services and perform the allocative function in a market economy.
• Understand the process by which competition among buyers and sellers determines a market price.
• Describe the effect of price controls on buyers and sellers.
• Analyze how domestic and international competition in a market economy affects goods and services produces and the quality, quantity and price of those products.
• Describe the functions of the financial markets.

12.3 Students analyze the influence of the federal government on the American economy.

• Understand how the role of government in a market economy often includes providing for national defense, addressing environmental concerns, defining and enforcing property rights, attempting to make markets more competitive and protecting consumers' rights.
• Describe the aims of government fiscal policies (taxation, borrowing, spending) and their influence on production, employment and price levels.

12.4 Students analyze the elements of the U.S. labor market in a global setting.

• Describe the current economy and labor market, including the types of goods and services produced, the types of skills workers need, the effects of rapid technological change and the impact of international competition.
• Discuss wage differences among jobs and professions, using the laws of demand and supply and the concept of productivity.

12.5 Students analyze the aggregate economic behavior of the U.S. economy.

• Distinguish between nominal and real data.
• Define, calculate and explain the significance of an unemployment rate, the number of new jobs created monthly, an inflation or deflation rate and a rate of economic growth.
• Distinguish between short-term and long-term interest rates and explain their relative significance.

12.6 Students analyze issues of international trade and explain how the U.S. economy affects, and is affected by, economic forces beyond the United States's borders.

• Understand the changing role of international political borders and territorial sovereignty in a global economy.
• Explain foreign exchange, the manner in which exchange rates are determined, and the effects of the dollar's gaining (or losing) value relative to other currencies.