Social Studies
Unit 1: Government
What will students understand as a result of this unit?
- Governmental structures vary from place to place, as do the functions of government, in the countries of the Western Hemisphere.
What “essential” and “unit” questions focus this unit?
- Why do nations have governments?
- What are the possible types of governments?
- What are similarities and differences in the structure and functions of governments of the Western Hemisphere nations today?
- How do governments affect the lives of people today?
Unit 2: Geography
What will students understand as a result of this unit?
- The physical characteristics of the Western Hemisphere are very varied.
- The geographic characteristics of the Western Hemisphere affect where people choose to live, the way people earn a living, and their everyday life.
- What “essential” and “unit” questions focus this unit?
- What are the physical characteristics of the Western Hemisphere?
- How do the geographic characteristics of the Western Hemisphere affect where people choose to live, how they earn a living, and their everyday life?
Unit 3: Economics
What will students understand as a result of this unit?
- The concept of wants and needs and how it applies to the lives of students
- What is meant by an economic system
- The 3 basic economic questions:
- What goods and services shall be produced and in what quantities?
- How shall these goods and services be produced?
- For whom shall these goods and services be produced?
- How Western Hemisphere nations with different economic systems answered the three basic economic questions in the past and in the present
- How technology influences the standard of living
What “essential” and “unit” questions focus this unit?
- How do the people of the Western Hemisphere meet their needs and wants?
- Why have some Western Hemisphere nations been more successful than others in meeting their needs and wants?
- How do people in the Western Hemisphere make economic decisions based on their wants and needs?
