The seventh grade early world history curriculum focuses on early world history. Students begin their exploration into world history with a focus on historical thinking. By unpacking historical thinking, students learn how this discipline is distinct in the way it asks questions and frames problems to organize and drive inquiry. Students learn that historians must have evidence to support the claims they make in their accounts. They investigate how these social scientists select, analyze, and organize evidence, and then use that evidence to create accounts that answer questions or problems. The course is intended to deepen students’ historical habits of mind and builds students’ social and content literacy.
In this grade, students investigate human history from the beginning until ~1500. They explore major and significant changes in each era through a chronological organization. Students learn about the earliest humans and explore early migration and settlement patterns. In studying the origins of farming and its impact upon emerging human cultures, students analyze evidence from the fields of archaeology and anthropology. They also employ a wide range of data sources including artifacts, photographs, and geographic information. Students examine how the emergence of pastoral and agrarian societies set the stage for the development of powerful empires, trade networks, and the diffusion of people, resources, and ideas.