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Skills available for District of Columbia fourth-grade social studies standards

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U.S. History and Geography: Making a New Nation

The Land and People Before European Exploration
- 4.1 Students describe the different peoples, with different languages and ways of life, that eventually spread out over the North and South American continents and the Caribbean Basin, from Asia to North America (the Bering Strait) (e.g., Inuits, Anasazi, Mound Builders, and the Caribs).
- 4.2 Students describe the legacy and cultures of the major indigenous settlements, including the cliff dwellers and pueblo people of the desert Southwest, the triple alliance empire of the Yucatan Peninsula, the nomadic nations of the Great Plains, and the woodland peoples east of the Mississippi.
  - 1 Identify how geography and climate influenced the way various nations lived and adjusted to the natural environment, including locations of villages, the distinct structures that they built, and how they obtained food, clothing, tools, and utensils.
  - 2 Describe systems of government, particularly those with tribal constitutions, and their relationship to federal and state governments.
  - 3 Describe religious beliefs, customs, and various folklore traditions.
  - 4 Explain their varied economies and trade networks.
Age of Exploration (15th–16th Centuries)
- 4.3 Students trace the routes of early explorers and describe the early explorations of the Americas.
  - 1 Compare maps of the modern world with historical maps of the world before the Age of Exploration.
  - 2 Locate and explain the routes of the major land explorers of the United States, the distances traveled by explorers, and the Atlantic trade routes that linked Africa, the West Indies, the British colonies, and Europe.
    - Southern colonies: economy and slavery (4-A.9)
  - 3 Locate the North, Central, Caribbean, and South American land claimed by European countries.
  - 4 Describe the aims, obstacles, and accomplishments of the explorers, sponsors, and leaders of key European expeditions and the reasons Europeans chose to explore and colonize the world (e.g., the Spanish Reconquista, the Protestant Reformation, and the Counter-Reformation).
  - 5 Identify the entrepreneurial characteristics of early explorers (e.g., Christopher Columbus, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado) and the technological developments that made sea exploration by latitude and longitude possible, including the exchange of technology and ideas with Asia and Africa.
  - 6 Analyze the impact of exploration and settlement on the indigenous peoples and the environment (e.g., military campaigns, spread of disease, and European agricultural practices).
- 4.4 Students identify the six different countries (France, Spain, Portugal, England, Russia, and the Netherlands) that influenced different regions of the present United States at the time the New World was being explored, and describe how their influence can be traced to place names, architectural features, and language.
- 4.5 Students describe the productive resources and market relationships that existed in early America.
  - 1 Describe the economic activities within and among Native American cultures prior to contact with Europeans.
  - 2 Identify how the colonial and early American economy exhibited these characteristics.
  - 3 Understand the development of technology and the impact of major inventions on business productivity during the early development of the United States.
    - Antebellum Period: economies of the North and South (4-C.5)
Settling the Colonies to the 1700s
- 4.6 Students describe the cooperation and conflict that existed among the Native Americans and between the Indian nations and the new settlers.
  - 1 Describe the competition between European nations for control of North America.
    - The American Revolution: the Thirteen Colonies under British rule (4-B.1)
    - The Louisiana Purchase (4-C.1)
  - 2 Understand the major ways Native Americans and colonists used the land, adapted to it, and changed the environment.
  - 3 Compare and contrast the differing views on ownership or use of land and the conflicts between them (e.g., the Pequot and King Philip's Wars in New England).
    - New England colonies: economy and conflict (4-A.5)
  - 4 Explain the cooperation that existed between the colonists and Native Americans during the 1600s and 1700s (e.g., fur trade, military alliances, treaties, and cultural interchanges).
  - 5 Describe the conflicts between Indian nations, including the competing claims for control of land (e.g., actions of the Iroquois, Huron, and Lakota).
  - 6 Identify the influence and achievements of significant leaders of the time (e.g., John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, Chief Tecumseh, Chief Logan, Chief John Ross, and Sequoyah).
    - The War of 1812: causes (4-C.3)
    - The War of 1812: events and effects (4-C.4)
  - 7 Explain the alliances between Native Americans and Africans in resistance to European colonialism and enslavement, emphasizing the Seminole nation and the Seminole Wars.
  - 8 Explain the role of broken treaties and massacres and the factors that led to the Native Americans' defeat, including the resistance of Native American nations to encroachment and assimilation.
- 4.7 Students understand the political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era.
  - 1 Locate and identify the first 13 colonies and explain how their location and natural environment influenced their development.
  - 2 Explain the significance of the relative location of a place (e.g., proximity to a harbor, on trade routes) when reviewing the settlement patterns of colonists.
  - 3 Identify major leaders and groups responsible for the founding of the original colonies in North America and the reasons for their founding (e.g., Lord Baltimore, Maryland; John Smith, Virginia; Roger Williams, Rhode Island; and John Winthrop, Massachusetts).
  - 4 Understand the early democratic ideas and practices that emerged during the colonial period, including the significance of representative assemblies and town meetings.
  - 5 Contrast these democratic ideals and practices with the presence of enslavement in all colonies and the attempts by Africans in the Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New England colonies to petition for freedom.
    - Southern colonies: economy and slavery (4-A.9)
  - 6 Outline the religious aspects of the earliest colonies (e.g., Puritanism in Massachusetts, Anglicanism in Virginia, Catholicism in Maryland, and Quakerism in Pennsylvania).
  - 7 Explain various reasons why people came to the colonies, including how both whites from Europe and blacks from Africa came to America as indentured servants who were released at the end of their indentures.
  - 8 Describe how Africans in the Caribbean and North America exchanged information about their various cultures to begin to create the foundation for an African American identity.
  - 9 Describe how Africans in North America drew upon their African past and upon selected European (and sometimes Native American) customs and values to develop a distinctive African American culture.
  - 10 Explain how the British colonial period created the basis for the development of political self-government and a free-market economic system.
  - 11 Analyze the impact of the European presence on Native American life (e.g., religious practices, land use, political structures, health and health systems).
    - New England colonies: economy and conflict (4-A.5)
The War for Independence (1760–1789)
- 4.8 Students explain the causes of the American Revolution.
  - 1 Explain the effects of transportation and communication on American independence (e.g., long travel time to England fostered local economic independence, and regional identities developed in the colonies through regular communication).
    - The American Revolution: the Thirteen Colonies under British rule (4-B.1)
  - 2 Explain how political, religious, and economic ideas and interests brought about the Revolution (e.g., resistance to imperial policy, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, taxes on tea, and Coercive Acts).
    - The American Revolution: New British taxes (4-B.2)
    - The American Revolution: the Boston Tea Party (4-B.3)
  - 3 Describe the significance of the First and Second Continental Congresses and of the Committees of Correspondence.
  - 4 Identify the people and events associated with the drafting and signing of the Declaration of Independence and the document's significance, including the key political concepts it embodies, the origins of those concepts, and its role in severing ties with Great Britain.
    - The American Revolution: struggle for independence (4-B.6)
  - 5 Identify the views, lives, and influences of key leaders during this period (e.g., King George III, Patrick Henry, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams).
- 4.9 Students describe the course and consequences of the American Revolution.
  - 1 Locate and identify the major military battles, campaigns, and turning points of the Revolutionary War.
  - 2 Understand the roles of the American and British leaders, and the Indian leaders' alliances on both sides.
  - 3 Understand the roles of African Americans, including their alliances on both sides (especially the case of Lord Dunmore's Proclamation and its impact on the war).
    - The American Revolution: preparing for war (4-B.5)
  - 4 Identify the contributions of France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Russia, as well as certain individuals to the outcome of the Revolution (e.g., the Marquis Marie Joseph de Lafayette, Tadeusz Kościuszko, and Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben).
  - 5 Describe the significance of land policies developed under the Continental Congress (e.g., sale of western lands and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787) and those policies' impact on American Indians' land.
  - 6 Explain how the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence changed the way people viewed slavery.
  - 7 Describe the different roles women played during the Revolution (e.g., Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, Phillis Wheatley, and Mercy Otis Warren).
  - 8 Analyze the personal impact and economic hardship of the war on families, problems of financing the war, wartime inflation, and laws against hoarding goods and materials and profiteering.
    - The American Revolution: turning the tide of the war (4-B.7)
    - The American Revolution: conclusion and aftermath (4-B.8)
- 4.1 Students describe the people and events associated with the development of the U.S. Constitution.
  - 1 Describe the significance of the new Constitution of 1787, including the struggles over its ratification and the reasons for the Bill of Rights.
  - 2 Describe the direct and indirect (or enabling) statements of the conditions on slavery in the Constitution and their impact on the emerging U.S. nation-state.
  - 3 Describe how the Constitution is designed to secure our liberty by both empowering and limiting central government.
  - 4 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.
  - 5 List and interpret the songs that express American ideals (e.g., "America the Beautiful" and "The Star-Spangled Banner").
- 4.11 Students compare and contrast 15th-through-18th-century America and the United States of the 21st century with respect to population, settlement, patterns, resource use, transportation systems, human livelihoods, and economic activity.

Historical and Social Sciences Analysis Skills

Chronology and Cause and Effect
- 1 Students place key events of the historical era they are studying and interpret information contained within time lines and comparative time charts.
- 2 Students know the calendar abbreviations and what they signify (e.g., A.D. and C.E., B.E. and B.C.E., c. and circa).
  - Reading and creating timelines with BCE and CE (4-Q.2)
- 3 Students explain how the present is connected to the past, identifying both similarities and differences between the two, and how some things change over time and some things stay the same.
- 4 Students summarize the key events of the era they are studying and explain the historical contexts of those events.
- 5 Students distinguish cause from effect and identify and interpret the multiple causes and effects of historical events.
- 6 Students conduct cost-benefit analyses of historical and current events.
Geographic Skills
- 1 Students use map and globe skills to determine the absolute locations (latitude and longitude) of places, and they interpret information available through a map or globe's legend, scale, and symbolic representations.
- 2 Students define common map and globe terms, including continent, country, mountain, valley, ocean, sea, lake, river; cardinal directions, latitude, longitude, north pole, south pole, tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, equator, 360-degree divisions, time zones; elevation, depth, approximate distances in miles, isthmus, strait, peninsula, island, archipelago, 23-and-a-half-degree global tilt, fall line; and compass rose, scale, and legend.
- 3 Students judge the significance of the relative location of a place (e.g., proximity to a harbor, on trade routes), and they analyze how relative advantages or disadvantages can change over time.
- 4 Students identify the human and physical characteristics of the places they are studying, and they explain how those features form the unique character of those places.
- 5 Students explain the distributions of cultures in places they study and how they create a cultural landscape.
- 6 Students describe the factors that influence the location, distribution, and interrelationships of economic activities in different regions.
- 7 Students trace how changes in technology, transportation, communication, and resources affect the location of economic activities.
  - Antebellum Period: economies of the North and South (4-C.5)
- 8 Students explain the causes and effects of settlement patterns, including the effect of rural-to-urban migrations.
  - Antebellum Period: economies of the North and South (4-C.5)
- 9 Students identify and explain the process of conflict and cooperation (political, economic, religious, etc.) among people in the contemporary world at local, regional, and national levels.
Historical Research, Evidence, and Point of View
- 1 Students analyze societies in terms of the following themes: military, political, economic, social, religious, and intellectual.
- 2 Students differentiate between primary and secondary sources and know examples of each.
- 3 Students pose relevant questions about events they encounter in historical documents, eyewitness accounts, oral histories, letters, diaries, artifacts, photographs, maps, artworks, and architecture.
- 4 Students use nontext primary and secondary sources, such as maps, charts, graphs, photographs, works of art, and technical charts.

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U.S. History and Geography: Making a New Nation

The Land and People Before European Exploration

4.1 Students describe the different peoples, with different languages and ways of life, that eventually spread out over the North and South American continents and the Caribbean Basin, from Asia to North America (the Bering Strait) (e.g., Inuits, Anasazi, Mound Builders, and the Caribs).

4.2 Students describe the legacy and cultures of the major indigenous settlements, including the cliff dwellers and pueblo people of the desert Southwest, the triple alliance empire of the Yucatan Peninsula, the nomadic nations of the Great Plains, and the woodland peoples east of the Mississippi.

1 Identify how geography and climate influenced the way various nations lived and adjusted to the natural environment, including locations of villages, the distinct structures that they built, and how they obtained food, clothing, tools, and utensils.

2 Describe systems of government, particularly those with tribal constitutions, and their relationship to federal and state governments.

3 Describe religious beliefs, customs, and various folklore traditions.

4 Explain their varied economies and trade networks.

Age of Exploration (15th–16th Centuries)

4.3 Students trace the routes of early explorers and describe the early explorations of the Americas.

1 Compare maps of the modern world with historical maps of the world before the Age of Exploration.

2 Locate and explain the routes of the major land explorers of the United States, the distances traveled by explorers, and the Atlantic trade routes that linked Africa, the West Indies, the British colonies, and Europe.

3 Locate the North, Central, Caribbean, and South American land claimed by European countries.

4 Describe the aims, obstacles, and accomplishments of the explorers, sponsors, and leaders of key European expeditions and the reasons Europeans chose to explore and colonize the world (e.g., the Spanish Reconquista, the Protestant Reformation, and the Counter-Reformation).

5 Identify the entrepreneurial characteristics of early explorers (e.g., Christopher Columbus, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado) and the technological developments that made sea exploration by latitude and longitude possible, including the exchange of technology and ideas with Asia and Africa.

6 Analyze the impact of exploration and settlement on the indigenous peoples and the environment (e.g., military campaigns, spread of disease, and European agricultural practices).

4.5 Students describe the productive resources and market relationships that existed in early America.

1 Describe the economic activities within and among Native American cultures prior to contact with Europeans.

2 Identify how the colonial and early American economy exhibited these characteristics.

3 Understand the development of technology and the impact of major inventions on business productivity during the early development of the United States.

Settling the Colonies to the 1700s

4.6 Students describe the cooperation and conflict that existed among the Native Americans and between the Indian nations and the new settlers.

1 Describe the competition between European nations for control of North America.

2 Understand the major ways Native Americans and colonists used the land, adapted to it, and changed the environment.

3 Compare and contrast the differing views on ownership or use of land and the conflicts between them (e.g., the Pequot and King Philip's Wars in New England).

4 Explain the cooperation that existed between the colonists and Native Americans during the 1600s and 1700s (e.g., fur trade, military alliances, treaties, and cultural interchanges).

5 Describe the conflicts between Indian nations, including the competing claims for control of land (e.g., actions of the Iroquois, Huron, and Lakota).

6 Identify the influence and achievements of significant leaders of the time (e.g., John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, Chief Tecumseh, Chief Logan, Chief John Ross, and Sequoyah).

7 Explain the alliances between Native Americans and Africans in resistance to European colonialism and enslavement, emphasizing the Seminole nation and the Seminole Wars.

8 Explain the role of broken treaties and massacres and the factors that led to the Native Americans' defeat, including the resistance of Native American nations to encroachment and assimilation.

4.7 Students understand the political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era.

1 Locate and identify the first 13 colonies and explain how their location and natural environment influenced their development.

2 Explain the significance of the relative location of a place (e.g., proximity to a harbor, on trade routes) when reviewing the settlement patterns of colonists.

3 Identify major leaders and groups responsible for the founding of the original colonies in North America and the reasons for their founding (e.g., Lord Baltimore, Maryland; John Smith, Virginia; Roger Williams, Rhode Island; and John Winthrop, Massachusetts).

4 Understand the early democratic ideas and practices that emerged during the colonial period, including the significance of representative assemblies and town meetings.

5 Contrast these democratic ideals and practices with the presence of enslavement in all colonies and the attempts by Africans in the Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New England colonies to petition for freedom.

6 Outline the religious aspects of the earliest colonies (e.g., Puritanism in Massachusetts, Anglicanism in Virginia, Catholicism in Maryland, and Quakerism in Pennsylvania).

7 Explain various reasons why people came to the colonies, including how both whites from Europe and blacks from Africa came to America as indentured servants who were released at the end of their indentures.

8 Describe how Africans in the Caribbean and North America exchanged information about their various cultures to begin to create the foundation for an African American identity.

9 Describe how Africans in North America drew upon their African past and upon selected European (and sometimes Native American) customs and values to develop a distinctive African American culture.

10 Explain how the British colonial period created the basis for the development of political self-government and a free-market economic system.

11 Analyze the impact of the European presence on Native American life (e.g., religious practices, land use, political structures, health and health systems).

The War for Independence (1760–1789)

4.8 Students explain the causes of the American Revolution.

1 Explain the effects of transportation and communication on American independence (e.g., long travel time to England fostered local economic independence, and regional identities developed in the colonies through regular communication).

2 Explain how political, religious, and economic ideas and interests brought about the Revolution (e.g., resistance to imperial policy, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, taxes on tea, and Coercive Acts).

3 Describe the significance of the First and Second Continental Congresses and of the Committees of Correspondence.

4 Identify the people and events associated with the drafting and signing of the Declaration of Independence and the document's significance, including the key political concepts it embodies, the origins of those concepts, and its role in severing ties with Great Britain.

5 Identify the views, lives, and influences of key leaders during this period (e.g., King George III, Patrick Henry, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams).

4.9 Students describe the course and consequences of the American Revolution.

1 Locate and identify the major military battles, campaigns, and turning points of the Revolutionary War.

2 Understand the roles of the American and British leaders, and the Indian leaders' alliances on both sides.

3 Understand the roles of African Americans, including their alliances on both sides (especially the case of Lord Dunmore's Proclamation and its impact on the war).

4 Identify the contributions of France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Russia, as well as certain individuals to the outcome of the Revolution (e.g., the Marquis Marie Joseph de Lafayette, Tadeusz Kościuszko, and Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben).

5 Describe the significance of land policies developed under the Continental Congress (e.g., sale of western lands and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787) and those policies' impact on American Indians' land.

6 Explain how the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence changed the way people viewed slavery.

7 Describe the different roles women played during the Revolution (e.g., Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, Phillis Wheatley, and Mercy Otis Warren).

8 Analyze the personal impact and economic hardship of the war on families, problems of financing the war, wartime inflation, and laws against hoarding goods and materials and profiteering.

4.1 Students describe the people and events associated with the development of the U.S. Constitution.

1 Describe the significance of the new Constitution of 1787, including the struggles over its ratification and the reasons for the Bill of Rights.

2 Describe the direct and indirect (or enabling) statements of the conditions on slavery in the Constitution and their impact on the emerging U.S. nation-state.

3 Describe how the Constitution is designed to secure our liberty by both empowering and limiting central government.

4 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.

5 List and interpret the songs that express American ideals (e.g., "America the Beautiful" and "The Star-Spangled Banner").

4.11 Students compare and contrast 15th-through-18th-century America and the United States of the 21st century with respect to population, settlement, patterns, resource use, transportation systems, human livelihoods, and economic activity.

Historical and Social Sciences Analysis Skills

Chronology and Cause and Effect

1 Students place key events of the historical era they are studying and interpret information contained within time lines and comparative time charts.

2 Students know the calendar abbreviations and what they signify (e.g., A.D. and C.E., B.E. and B.C.E., c. and circa).

3 Students explain how the present is connected to the past, identifying both similarities and differences between the two, and how some things change over time and some things stay the same.

4 Students summarize the key events of the era they are studying and explain the historical contexts of those events.

5 Students distinguish cause from effect and identify and interpret the multiple causes and effects of historical events.

6 Students conduct cost-benefit analyses of historical and current events.

Geographic Skills

1 Students use map and globe skills to determine the absolute locations (latitude and longitude) of places, and they interpret information available through a map or globe's legend, scale, and symbolic representations.

3 Students judge the significance of the relative location of a place (e.g., proximity to a harbor, on trade routes), and they analyze how relative advantages or disadvantages can change over time.

4 Students identify the human and physical characteristics of the places they are studying, and they explain how those features form the unique character of those places.