Social Studies - 2nd Grade

Enduring Understanding: B.F. Skinner said, "Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten." This statement explains enduring understandings. In Understanding by Design, by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, enduring understandings are defined as "specific inferences, based on big ideas, that have lasting value beyond the classroom." These are typically written as full-sentence statements about what, specifically, your students will understand and be able to use later on in life, even when the small details of what they learned have been forgotten.

Enduring understandings are also transferable in new situations. Wiggins and McTighe explain that, because enduring understandings are often abstract, "they require uncoverage through sustained inquiry rather than one-shot coverage. The student must come to understand or be helped to grasp the idea, as a result of work. If teachers treat an understanding like a fact, the student is unlikely to get it."

Essential Question: An essential question is "a question that lies at the heart of a subject or a curriculum (as opposed to being either trivial or leading) and promotes inquiry and uncoverage of a subject. Essential questions thus do not yield a single straightforward answer (as a leading question does) but produces different plausible responses, about which thoughtful and knowledgeable people may disagree." An essential question can be either overarching or topical (unit-specific) in scope.
(Source: Understanding by Design, by Grant P. Wiggins and Jay McTighe; ISBN: 416600353.)

Standard I    Standard II    Standard III    Standard IV

(Culture): Students will recognize and describe how people within their community, state, and nation are both similar and different.

Enduring Understandings

Objective 1:
Examine and identify cultural differences within the community.

Essential Questions

• How can cultural differences impact a community?

Indicators:

1. Explain the various cultural heritages within their community.
2. Explain ways people respect and pass on their traditions and customs.
3. Give examples of how families in the community borrow customs or traditions from other cultures.

Objective 2:
Recognize and describe the contributions of different cultural groups in Utah and the nation.

Essential Questions

• Explain how people from within a community, state, or nation help each other.

Indicators:

1. Identify various cultural groups within the state and the nation.
2. Describe contributions of cultural groups to our state and nation.
3. Explain ways American Indians and immigrants have shaped both Utah's and America's culture (e.g., names of places, food, customs, celebrations).
4. Compare and contrast elements of two or more cultures within the state and nation (e.g., language, food, clothing, shelter, traditions, and celebrations).

(Citizenship): Students will recognize and practice civic responsibility in the community, state, and nation.

Enduring Understandings

Objective 1:
Examine civic responsibility and demonstrate good citizenship.

Essential Questions

• How can I be a good citizen?

Indicators:

1. Describe characteristics of being a good citizen through the examples of historic figures and ordinary citizens.
2. Explain the benefits of being a U.S. citizen (e.g., responsibilities, freedoms, opportunities, and the importance of voting in free elections).
3. Identify and participate in a local civic activity. (e.g. community cleanup, recycling, walkathons, voting).
4. Identify state and national activities (e.g., voting, Pledge of Allegiance, holidays).

Objective 2:
Identify individuals within the school community and how they contribute to the school's success.

Essential Questions

• Why does it take many individuals working together to create a successful school community?

Indicators:

1. Identify the roles that people have in the school and explain the importance of each member.
2. Demonstrate respect for the school and the school community.

Objective 3:
Investigate and show how communities, state, and nation are united by symbols that represent citizenship in our nation.

Essential Questions

• How can symbols unite those they represent?

Indicators:

1. Explain the significance of various community, state, and national celebrations (e.g., Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving).
2. Identify community and state symbols, documents and landmarks (e.g., city hall, county courthouse, state capitol, Utah State Constitution, flag, holidays).
3. Identify and explain the significance of various national symbols, documents, and landmarks (e.g., Declaration of Independence, Constitution, flag, Pledge of Allegiance, national monuments, national capitol building).

(Geography): Students will use geographic tools and skills to locate and describe places on earth.

Enduring Understandings

Objective 1:
Identify common symbols and physical features of a community, and explain how they affect people's activities in that area.

Essential Questions

• How does geography affect where people live and what they do?

Indicators:

1. Identify community traffic signs and symbols, and know their meanings (e.g., stop sign, hazard symbols, pedestrian crossing, bike route, recreational, blind or deaf child signs).
2. Describe how geographic aspects of the area affect a community and influence culture (e.g., river, mountain, and desert).
3. Describe ways in which people have modified the physical environment in a community (e.g., building roads, clearing land for homes, and mining).

Objective 2:
Demonstrate geographic skills on a map and a globe.

Essential Questions

• Why is having an understanding of maps and globes important?

Indicators:

1. Identify and use information on a map and on a globe (e.g., map key or legend, simple grid systems, physical features, compass rose).
2. Compare and contrast the difference between maps and globes.
3. Locate your city, the State of Utah, and the United States on a variety of maps or on a globe.
4. Locate and label the following on a map or a globe: the seven continents, the five oceans, the poles, and the equator.
5. Using a map or a globe, link cultures/nationalities within your community to their place of origin.

(Financial Literacy): Students will explain how the economy meets human needs through the interaction of producers and consumers.

Enduring Understandings

Objective 1:
Describe how producers and consumers work together in the making and using of goods and services.

Essential Questions

• In what ways are people both consumers and producers?  Why are both important?

Indicators:

1. Define and explain the difference between producing and consuming.
2. Explain ways in which people can be both consumers and producers of goods and services.
3. Recognize that people supply goods and services based on what people want.
4. Identify examples of technology that people use (e.g., automobiles, computers, telephones).
5. Identify how technology affects the way people live (work and play).

Objective 2:
Describe the choices people make in using goods and services.

Essential Questions

• Explain choices people have to make when using goods and services.

Indicators:

1. Explain the goods and services that businesses provide.
2. Explain the services that government provides.
3. Explain different ways to pay for goods and services (i.e., cash, checks, credit cards).
4. Explain how work provides income to purchase goods and services.
5. Explain reasons and ways to save money (e.g., to buy a bicycle or MP3 player, piggy bank, bank, credit union, savings account).

 

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