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Skills available for Rhode Island sixth-grade social studies standards

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Rhode Island Social Studies Standards (adopted in 2023) Rhode Island Social Studies Standards (adopted in 2023)
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1 Researching the Past

SS6.1.1 Experts of the past
- SS6.1.1 Analyze the jobs and necessary skills of people who study the past.
  - SS6.1.1.a Explain ways geographers study the Earth, its land, features, and inhabitants to understand the relationship between humans and planet earth, and identify the tools that they use.
  - SS6.1.1.b Explain ways archeologists study the physical evidence left behind by humans to understand human culture, and identify the tools that they use.
  - SS6.1.1.c Explain ways anthropologists work with people today to learn about their cultures and histories.
  - SS6.1.1.d Explain the approaches historians use to analyze and interpret the past using primary and secondary sources, and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of those approaches.
    - Identify primary and secondary sources (6-LL.1)
  - SS6.1.1.e Analyze similarities and differences in the ways that geographers, archeologists, anthropologists, and historians work to identify primary sources and artifacts, analyze evidence, and construct interpretations of the past.
SS6.1.2 Sources of the past
- SS6.1.2 Analyze the sources scholars use to study the past.
  - SS6.1.2.a Identify types of primary sources, and analyze ways that scholars use them to study the past.
    - Identify primary and secondary sources (6-LL.1)
  - SS6.1.2.b Identify types of secondary sources, and analyze ways that scholars use them to study the past.
    - Identify primary and secondary sources (6-LL.1)
  - SS6.1.2.c Analyze the importance of using oral traditions when studying history.
  - SS6.1.2.d Analyze the challenges in using primary and secondary sources (e.g., contextualization, corroboration, bias).
    - Identify primary and secondary sources (6-LL.1)
SS6.1.3 Understanding time
- SS6.1.3 Explain the scale of time from today back to early humans.
  - SS6.1.3.a Identify ways to express the scale of time (e.g., decade, age, era, century, millennium, BCE, CE) and explain why times periods are named differently in different contexts.
    - Reading and creating timelines with BCE and CE (6-MM.1)
  - SS6.1.3.b Identify terms for historical periods (e.g., Paleolithic Era, Neolithic Era, Before Common Era, Common Era) and the time we are living in now.
    - The Neolithic Period (6-A.1)
  - SS6.1.3.c Identify linear and comparative timelines, and explain how to read and use them.
    - Reading and creating timelines with BCE and CE (6-MM.1)

2 Human Origins and the Development of Complex Societies

SS6.2.1 Environment and early humans
- SS6.2.1 Analyze the development of early humans and the characteristics of early human societies.
  - SS6.2.1.a Identify major geographical features around the world (e.g., climate zones, bodies of water, mountains, deserts).
  - SS6.2.1.b Explain environmental changes that shaped the earth, and analyze how they allowed for the growth and development of human life.
    - The Neolithic Period (6-A.1)
  - SS6.2.1.c Identify significant archeological sites and their locations, the techniques used to obtain those findings, and analyze the types of evidence found of human ancestors and their evolution.
  - SS6.2.1.d Analyze the reasons human groups moved around the globe and identify the locations of those movements.
    - Pre-contact Native peoples: introduction (6-Q.1)
  - SS6.2.1.e Explain the differences between Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Neanderthals, and Homo sapiens.
  - SS6.2.1.f Explain reasons that human ancestor lines transformed and replaced other hominid lines.
  - SS6.2.1.g Identify the characteristics of early Homo sapiens (e.g., art, language, religion), and explain how these characteristics lead to our understanding of how they lived and how culture developed.
    - The Neolithic Period (6-A.1)
SS6.2.2 Expansion of early societies
- SS6.2.2 Analyze the lifeways and characteristics of early world societies and their expansion into the Americas.
  - SS6.2.2.a Explain lifeways of early societies (e.g., Hunter-Gatherer, Nomadic, permanent civilization), and identify their locations around the world.
    - The Neolithic Period (6-A.1)
    - Pre-contact Native peoples: introduction (6-Q.1)
  - SS6.2.2.b Analyze cultural characteristics of early societies around the world (e.g., language, art, technology, social structure).
  - SS6.2.2.c Explain the migration of people from Asia to the Americas.
    - Pre-contact Native peoples: introduction (6-Q.1)
  - SS6.2.2.d Identify the location of early hunter gatherer societies in the Americas, and analyze the roles of geography and environment on their settlement and development.
    - Pre-contact Native peoples: introduction (6-Q.1)
SS6.2.3 Development of complex societies
- SS6.2.3 Analyze the development of complex societies, their characteristics, and interactions with one another.
  - SS6.2.3.a Identify the characteristics of a complex society (e.g., economy that produces food surplus and ability to store food surplus, specialized jobs, systems for government, religion, art, technology) and analyze how those characteristics influenced social life.
    - Compare ancient river civilizations: geography and society (6-F.1)
    - Compare ancient river civilizations: achievements and legacy (6-F.2)
  - SS6.2.3.b Analyze the impacts of the development of agriculture and herding on populations.
  - SS6.2.3.c Analyze the interaction between and spread of complex societies (e.g., migration, trade, agriculture, exchange of culture and/or language, religious conversion, colonization).
    - Compare ancient river civilizations: geography and society (6-F.1)
    - Compare ancient river civilizations: achievements and legacy (6-F.2)
  - SS6.2.3.d Explain the significance of the Fertile Crescent, identify its location, and analyze the role of natural resources in its development.
    - Early Mesopotamia (6-B.1)
  - SS6.2.3.e Analyze the influence of geography on the development of the social, economic, and political structure of Indigenous civilizations in the Americas.
    - Pre-contact Native peoples: introduction (6-Q.1)

3 The First States (4000 - 1200 BCE)

SS6.3.1 Early river valley civilizations
- SS6.3.1 Analyze the development of early cities, states, and empires, and the role of trade between the entities.
  - SS6.3.1.a Analyze the environmental developments that accompanied the rise of urban river basin societies (e.g., reliable water source, irrigation, warmer weather with expanded growing seasons, richer soil for agriculture).
    - Compare ancient river civilizations: geography and society (6-F.1)
  - SS6.3.1.b Identify early river cities on a map (e.g., Mesopotamia, Old Kingdom Egypt, Indus Valley, Yellow and Yangzi River basin), and analyze their government structures, leaders, laws, economic systems, religion and belief systems, social hierarchies, technological and social innovations, and relationship to the environment.
  - SS6.3.1.c Explain the role of trade and contact between early river valley civilizations.
  - SS6.3.1.d Analyze the reasons for the decline of the river valley civilizations.
SS6.3.2 Nomads and territorial states
- SS6.3.2 Analyze the interaction between nomads and their environments as well as the development of new states throughout Afro-Eurasia.
  - SS6.3.2.a Analyze the role of nomads in the restructuring of the political landscape (e.g., establishment of regional trade networks, technological and social innovations such as horses and chariots).
    - The ancient Silk Road: geography and transportation (6-G.1)
    - The ancient Silk Road: goods and ideas (6-G.2)
  - SS6.3.2.b Identify the locations of territorial states (e.g., Middle Kingdom Egypt, Mesopotamia Kingship, Vedic peoples, Shang State), and analyze their ethnic identity, government, and techniques of coexistence with other territorial states, response to environmental changes, trade networks, labor systems, and religion.
  - SS6.3.2.c Identify the location of small-scale political entities (e.g., microsocieties such as Austronesians, Mycenaeans, Minoans), analyze their cultural beliefs and social hierarchies, and argue how their role in trade impacted economies and technological advances.

4 World Empires and Cultures (1200 - 350 BCE)

SS6.4.1 Rise of empires and urban-based societies
- SS6.4.1 Argue the impacts of the establishment of major empires, smaller urban-based societies, and the ways they interacted with surrounding peoples.
  - SS6.4.1.a Explain the characteristics of empires and analyze the ways empires differed from the river valley civilizations or territorial states.
  - SS6.4.1.b Argue the impacts of climate change, migrations, new technologies, and administrative innovations in the rise of new empires.
  - SS6.4.1.c Analyze the similarities and differences in the methods of ruling an empire and the lived experiences of individuals in the Neo-Assyrian (911-612 BCE) and Persian (560-331 BCE) empires in West Asia (Middle East), Vedics (1500-600 BCE) in South Asia, and early Zhou Empire (1045-771 BCE) in East Asia.
  - SS6.4.1.d Identify methods of government developed in the early empires, analyze how and why they developed, and argue who benefited.
  - SS6.4.1.e Analyze the interaction of the early empires with peoples on the margins such as the Greeks and the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean, and argue the impacts of those interactions.
    - Alexander the Great (6-I.5)
  - SS6.4.1.f Analyze the similarities and differences of the complex urban-based societies in sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas, the lived experiences of the people of Nubia, the Nok in West Africa, the Chavín of the Andes, and the Olmecs of Mesoamerica.
    - The kingdoms of Kush (6-C.3)
    - Foundations of Maya civilization (6-P.1)
SS6.4.2 Spread of ideas and social transformations
- SS6.4.2 Argue the impacts of the cultural, intellectual, political, economic, and environmental changes happening across Africa, Europe, and Asia during this time period.
  - SS6.4.2.a Analyze cultural and environmental changes across Africa, Europe, and Asia (e.g., Vedic system of hierarchy in Northern India, Northern China's agriculture revolution, city growth on the Ganges plain), and argue the impacts of those changes.
  - SS6.4.2.b Analyze the political and economic changes across Africa, Europe, and Asia (e.g., Shang Yang reforms in the Qin dynasty and new methods of military campaigns, development of polis in Greece or civitas in Rome, development of a system of money), and argue the impacts of those changes.
  - SS6.4.2.c Analyze the intellectual changes across Africa, Europe, and Asia (e.g., Master Kong Fuzi or Confucius, Daoism, Siddhartha Gautama or the Buddha, Zoroastrianism, Greek philosophers and thinkers), and argue the impacts of those changes.

5 Encounters in the Afro-Eurasian World (350 BCE - 300 CE)

SS6.5.1 Solidification of major empires
- SS6.5.1 Argue the reasons for the rise of the globalizing empires of the Afro-Eurasian world and compare their characteristics.
  - SS6.5.1.a Analyze the definition of and conditions of a "globalizing empire".
  - SS6.5.1.b Identify the locations of the empires of the Han Dynasty in China, the Roman Empire, and the Mauryan Empire on a map, and analyze the ways their geographic locations and the environment affected their expansion and influence.
  - SS6.5.1.c Analyze the formation and course of these globalizing empires including administration and government, labor systems, economic systems, social systems and hierarchies, and relationship to the environment, and argue the impacts of these developments and who benefited in these societies.
SS6.5.2 Connecting the Afro-Eurasian Regions
- SS6.5.2 Argue the impact of the influence of trade routes in connecting the Afro-Eurasian regions.
  - SS6.5.2.a Analyze the use of roads and highways for communication, trade, and control within empires (e.g., roads in the Persian Empire, Roman Empire, and Qin and Han China), and argue their impacts.
  - SS6.5.2.b Analyze the development and use of the Silk Road and the role of caravan cities, and argue the impacts of the economic, cultural, and religious changes it brought.
    - The ancient Silk Road: geography and transportation (6-G.1)
    - The ancient Silk Road: goods and ideas (6-G.2)
  - SS6.5.2.c Identify the routes of Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade, analyze the role of the environment on the success or failure of trade, and argue the economic and cultural influences and importance of navigational technology to the trade.

6 Rise and Influence of World Religions

SS6.6.1 Comparison of world religions
- SS6.6.1 Argue the impacts of the five major world religions on the development of societies and cultures through time.
  - SS6.6.1.a Analyze the definition and characteristics of universalizing religion.
  - SS6.6.1.b Analyze the beliefs and religious practices of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, their development, and how they changed over time (e.g., central teachings, influence of the environment on teachings, social stratification within the religion, religious texts, religious observations).
  - SS6.6.1.c Analyze the history of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, how they spread, and the role of empires on their development.
  - SS6.6.1.d Argue the impacts of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam on the development of societies and cultures.
  - SS6.6.1.e Argue the ways Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam continue to influence society and culture today.
SS6.6.2 Localized belief systems and cultures
- SS6.6.2 Argue the influences of other belief systems throughout the ancient world on society and culture.
  - SS6.6.2.a Explain the beliefs and religious practices of the Bantus of Sub-Saharan Africa, Teotihuacanos of Mesoamerica, and Mayans in the Yucatan and their development, and analyze how they changed over time (e.g., central teachings, influence of the environment on teachings, social stratification within the religion, religious texts, religious observations).
    - Foundations of Maya civilization (6-P.1)
  - SS6.6.2.b Analyze the history and growth of the Bantus of Sub-Saharan Africa, Teotihuacan of Mesoamerica, and Mayans in the Yucatan, and argue the role of political unity on their development.
    - Foundations of Maya civilization (6-P.1)
  - SS6.6.2.c Argue the impacts of the Bantus of Sub-Saharan Africa, Teotihuacan of Mesoamerica, and Mayans in the Yucatan on society and culture.
    - Foundations of Maya civilization (6-P.1)

7 Global Trade (300 CE - 1300 CE)

SS6.7.1 Expansion of territory
- SS6.7.1 Argue the impact of the expansion of territorial influence across Afro-Eurasian regions from 300-1300 CE.
  - SS6.7.1.a Analyze agricultural changes across Africa, Europe, and Asia from 300-600 CE, and argue the impacts on people and population numbers.
  - SS6.7.1.b Analyze the reasons for the growth of commercial cities such as Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt, Quilon in India, Melaka in Malaysia, and Quanzhou in China (e.g., new maritime technologies and empire expansion), and argue the impact of their growth.
  - SS6.7.1.c Analyze the influence of trade on the development of early sub-Saharan African states and societies including the Kingdom of Axum, Swahili coastal societies, and Timbuktu in West Africa.
  - SS6.7.1.d Analyze the cause and course of the Tang Dynasty's expansion into Korea and Japan, and argue its impact on those cultures.
  - SS6.7.1.e Explain the Black Death, and argue how its impacts were felt across Africa, Europe, and Asia.
    - The medieval Silk Road (6-G.3)
SS6.7.2 Expansion of Religion
- SS6.7.2 Argue the impact of the expansion of religion across Afro-Eurasian regions from 300-1300 CE.
  - SS6.7.2.a Analyze the decentralization and spread of Islam in places such as Cordoba in Spain, Ghana in West Africa, and Baghdad in Central Asia, and argue the impacts of its growing influence and division.
    - Origins of Islam (6-H.3)
  - SS6.7.2.b Analyze the spread of Christianity across Africa, Europe, and Asia including the role of the Vikings, Charlemagne, the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Crusades, and argue its political and cultural impacts on societies.
    - Origins of Christianity (6-H.2)
    - The Crusades (6-N.2)
  - SS6.7.2.c Explain the philosophy of Confucianism, analyze its spread across Asia, and argue its impact.
    - The teachings of Confucius (6-D.6)

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1 Researching the Past

SS6.1.1 Experts of the past

SS6.1.1 Analyze the jobs and necessary skills of people who study the past.

SS6.1.1.a Explain ways geographers study the Earth, its land, features, and inhabitants to understand the relationship between humans and planet earth, and identify the tools that they use.

SS6.1.1.b Explain ways archeologists study the physical evidence left behind by humans to understand human culture, and identify the tools that they use.

SS6.1.1.c Explain ways anthropologists work with people today to learn about their cultures and histories.

SS6.1.1.d Explain the approaches historians use to analyze and interpret the past using primary and secondary sources, and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of those approaches.

SS6.1.1.e Analyze similarities and differences in the ways that geographers, archeologists, anthropologists, and historians work to identify primary sources and artifacts, analyze evidence, and construct interpretations of the past.

SS6.1.2 Sources of the past

SS6.1.2 Analyze the sources scholars use to study the past.

SS6.1.2.a Identify types of primary sources, and analyze ways that scholars use them to study the past.

SS6.1.2.b Identify types of secondary sources, and analyze ways that scholars use them to study the past.

SS6.1.2.c Analyze the importance of using oral traditions when studying history.

SS6.1.2.d Analyze the challenges in using primary and secondary sources (e.g., contextualization, corroboration, bias).

SS6.1.3 Understanding time

SS6.1.3 Explain the scale of time from today back to early humans.

SS6.1.3.a Identify ways to express the scale of time (e.g., decade, age, era, century, millennium, BCE, CE) and explain why times periods are named differently in different contexts.

SS6.1.3.b Identify terms for historical periods (e.g., Paleolithic Era, Neolithic Era, Before Common Era, Common Era) and the time we are living in now.

SS6.1.3.c Identify linear and comparative timelines, and explain how to read and use them.

2 Human Origins and the Development of Complex Societies

SS6.2.1 Environment and early humans

SS6.2.1 Analyze the development of early humans and the characteristics of early human societies.

SS6.2.1.a Identify major geographical features around the world (e.g., climate zones, bodies of water, mountains, deserts).

SS6.2.1.b Explain environmental changes that shaped the earth, and analyze how they allowed for the growth and development of human life.

SS6.2.1.c Identify significant archeological sites and their locations, the techniques used to obtain those findings, and analyze the types of evidence found of human ancestors and their evolution.

SS6.2.1.d Analyze the reasons human groups moved around the globe and identify the locations of those movements.

SS6.2.1.e Explain the differences between Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Neanderthals, and Homo sapiens.

SS6.2.1.f Explain reasons that human ancestor lines transformed and replaced other hominid lines.

SS6.2.1.g Identify the characteristics of early Homo sapiens (e.g., art, language, religion), and explain how these characteristics lead to our understanding of how they lived and how culture developed.

SS6.2.2 Expansion of early societies

SS6.2.2 Analyze the lifeways and characteristics of early world societies and their expansion into the Americas.

SS6.2.2.a Explain lifeways of early societies (e.g., Hunter-Gatherer, Nomadic, permanent civilization), and identify their locations around the world.

SS6.2.2.b Analyze cultural characteristics of early societies around the world (e.g., language, art, technology, social structure).

SS6.2.2.c Explain the migration of people from Asia to the Americas.

SS6.2.2.d Identify the location of early hunter gatherer societies in the Americas, and analyze the roles of geography and environment on their settlement and development.

SS6.2.3 Development of complex societies

SS6.2.3 Analyze the development of complex societies, their characteristics, and interactions with one another.

SS6.2.3.a Identify the characteristics of a complex society (e.g., economy that produces food surplus and ability to store food surplus, specialized jobs, systems for government, religion, art, technology) and analyze how those characteristics influenced social life.

SS6.2.3.b Analyze the impacts of the development of agriculture and herding on populations.

SS6.2.3.c Analyze the interaction between and spread of complex societies (e.g., migration, trade, agriculture, exchange of culture and/or language, religious conversion, colonization).

SS6.2.3.d Explain the significance of the Fertile Crescent, identify its location, and analyze the role of natural resources in its development.

SS6.2.3.e Analyze the influence of geography on the development of the social, economic, and political structure of Indigenous civilizations in the Americas.

3 The First States (4000 - 1200 BCE)

SS6.3.1 Early river valley civilizations

SS6.3.1 Analyze the development of early cities, states, and empires, and the role of trade between the entities.

SS6.3.1.a Analyze the environmental developments that accompanied the rise of urban river basin societies (e.g., reliable water source, irrigation, warmer weather with expanded growing seasons, richer soil for agriculture).

SS6.3.1.c Explain the role of trade and contact between early river valley civilizations.

SS6.3.1.d Analyze the reasons for the decline of the river valley civilizations.

SS6.3.2 Nomads and territorial states

SS6.3.2 Analyze the interaction between nomads and their environments as well as the development of new states throughout Afro-Eurasia.

SS6.3.2.a Analyze the role of nomads in the restructuring of the political landscape (e.g., establishment of regional trade networks, technological and social innovations such as horses and chariots).

SS6.3.2.c Identify the location of small-scale political entities (e.g., microsocieties such as Austronesians, Mycenaeans, Minoans), analyze their cultural beliefs and social hierarchies, and argue how their role in trade impacted economies and technological advances.

4 World Empires and Cultures (1200 - 350 BCE)

SS6.4.1 Rise of empires and urban-based societies

SS6.4.1 Argue the impacts of the establishment of major empires, smaller urban-based societies, and the ways they interacted with surrounding peoples.

SS6.4.1.a Explain the characteristics of empires and analyze the ways empires differed from the river valley civilizations or territorial states.

SS6.4.1.b Argue the impacts of climate change, migrations, new technologies, and administrative innovations in the rise of new empires.

SS6.4.1.d Identify methods of government developed in the early empires, analyze how and why they developed, and argue who benefited.

SS6.4.1.e Analyze the interaction of the early empires with peoples on the margins such as the Greeks and the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean, and argue the impacts of those interactions.

SS6.4.1.f Analyze the similarities and differences of the complex urban-based societies in sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas, the lived experiences of the people of Nubia, the Nok in West Africa, the Chavín of the Andes, and the Olmecs of Mesoamerica.

SS6.4.2 Spread of ideas and social transformations

SS6.4.2 Argue the impacts of the cultural, intellectual, political, economic, and environmental changes happening across Africa, Europe, and Asia during this time period.

SS6.4.2.a Analyze cultural and environmental changes across Africa, Europe, and Asia (e.g., Vedic system of hierarchy in Northern India, Northern China's agriculture revolution, city growth on the Ganges plain), and argue the impacts of those changes.

SS6.4.2.b Analyze the political and economic changes across Africa, Europe, and Asia (e.g., Shang Yang reforms in the Qin dynasty and new methods of military campaigns, development of polis in Greece or civitas in Rome, development of a system of money), and argue the impacts of those changes.

SS6.4.2.c Analyze the intellectual changes across Africa, Europe, and Asia (e.g., Master Kong Fuzi or Confucius, Daoism, Siddhartha Gautama or the Buddha, Zoroastrianism, Greek philosophers and thinkers), and argue the impacts of those changes.

5 Encounters in the Afro-Eurasian World (350 BCE - 300 CE)

SS6.5.1 Solidification of major empires

SS6.5.1 Argue the reasons for the rise of the globalizing empires of the Afro-Eurasian world and compare their characteristics.

SS6.5.1.a Analyze the definition of and conditions of a "globalizing empire".

SS6.5.1.b Identify the locations of the empires of the Han Dynasty in China, the Roman Empire, and the Mauryan Empire on a map, and analyze the ways their geographic locations and the environment affected their expansion and influence.

SS6.5.1.c Analyze the formation and course of these globalizing empires including administration and government, labor systems, economic systems, social systems and hierarchies, and relationship to the environment, and argue the impacts of these developments and who benefited in these societies.

SS6.5.2 Connecting the Afro-Eurasian Regions

SS6.5.2 Argue the impact of the influence of trade routes in connecting the Afro-Eurasian regions.

SS6.5.2.a Analyze the use of roads and highways for communication, trade, and control within empires (e.g., roads in the Persian Empire, Roman Empire, and Qin and Han China), and argue their impacts.

SS6.5.2.b Analyze the development and use of the Silk Road and the role of caravan cities, and argue the impacts of the economic, cultural, and religious changes it brought.

SS6.5.2.c Identify the routes of Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade, analyze the role of the environment on the success or failure of trade, and argue the economic and cultural influences and importance of navigational technology to the trade.

6 Rise and Influence of World Religions