Grade 3 Social Studies Washington standards Standards

History

Geography

Economics

Civics

Social Studies Skills

Understands key ideals and principles of the United States, including those in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and other foundational documents.

Recognize the key ideals of unity and diversity.

Recognize and apply the key ideals of unity and diversity within the context of the community.

Use deliberative processes when making decisions or reaching judgement as a group.

Identify core virtues and democratic principles found in classroom and school rules.

Understands the purposes, organization, and function of governments, laws, and political systems.

Describe the basic organization of government in the community or city.

Identify the basic function of government and laws in the community or city.

Explain the reasons for rules in the home or in school, and compare rules and laws in the local community.

Describe ways in which people benefit from and are challenged by working together, including through government, workplaces, voluntary organizations, and families.

Understands the purposes and organization of tribal and international relationships and U.S. foreign policy.

Explain that tribes have lived in North America since time immemorial.

Know and understand that tribes have organizational structures (councils, chairman, etc.) that are formed to benefit the entire tribe.

Explain how tribes of North America work to help the people of their tribes.

Understands civic involvement.

Recognize that civic participation involves being informed about public issues, taking action, and voting in elections.

Explain the many ways people become knowledgeable about issues in their communities: they read, discuss, communicate, and vote.

Demonstrate that voting is a civic duty.

Understands that people have to make choices between wants and needs and evaluates the outcomes of those choices.

Identify the costs and benefits of individual choices.

Identify positive and negative incentives that influence the decisions people make.

Describe how individual choices are influenced by various cultural norms.

Understands the components of an economic system.

Recognize how the economic systems of groups are influenced by community and cultural laws, values, and customs.

Identify examples of the variety of resources (human capital, physical capital, and natural resources) that are used to produce goods and services.

Explain why individuals and businesses specialize and trade.

Explain the role of money in making exchange easier.

Explain how profits influence sellers in markets.

Identify examples of external benefits (acquired relationships) and costs (things given up).

Describe the role of financial institutions in an economy.

Understands the government's role in the economy.

Describe how local taxation supports one's community.

Explain the ways in which the government pays for the goods and services it provides.

Understands the economic issues and problems that all societies face.

Identify the positive and negative impacts of trade among and between cultural groups.

Explain how trade leads to increasing economic interdependence among cultural groups.

Explain the effects of increasing economic interdependence on different groups within participating cultural groups.

Understands the physical characteristics, cultural characteristics, and location of places, regions, and spatial patterns on the Earth's surface.

Examine and use maps and globes to understand the regions of North America in the past and present.

Investigate the physical, political, and cultural characteristics of places, regions, and people in North America, including the location of the fifty states within the regions of the United States.

Understands human interaction with the environment.

Explain how the environment affects cultural groups and how groups affect the environment.

Examine the cultural universals of place, time, family life, economics, communication, arts, recreation, food, clothing, shelter, transportation, government, and education.

Compare the traditions, beliefs, and values of cultural groups in North America.

Understands the geographic context of global issues and events.

Explain that learning about the geography of North America helps us understand cultures from around the world.

Understands historical chronology.

Create timelines to show events connected to their cultural identities.

Compare the similarities and differences between their own cultural timelines and those of others.

Use timelines to explain the context of history.

Understands and analyzes causal factors that have shaped major events in history.

Demonstrate how contributions made by various cultural and ethnic groups have shaped the history of the community and world.

Explain probable causes and effects of events and developments locally.

Understands that there are multiple perspectives and interpretations of historical events.

Recognize and explain that there are multiple cultural perspectives through a study of important individual or major events.

Explain connections among historical contexts and people's perspectives at the time.

Describe how people's perspectives shaped the historical sources they created.

Understands how historical events inform analysis of contemporary issues and events.

Recognize and explain how significant cultural events have implications for current decisions.

Use evidence to develop a claim about our past community's history.

Summarize how different kinds of historical sources are used to explain events in the past.

Uses critical reasoning skills to analyze and evaluate claims.

Explain the purpose of documents and the concepts used in them.

Evaluate if information is well accepted and relevant, or if information is clear, specific, and detailed.

Uses inquiry-based research.

Use a graphic organizer to organize main ideas and supporting details from a variety of print and non-print texts.

Explain how and why compelling questions are important to others (e.g., peers, adults).

Deliberates public issues.

Engage others in discussions that attempt to clarify and address multiple viewpoints on public issues based on key ideals.

Creates a product that uses social studies content to support a claim and presents the product in a manner that meaningfully communicates with a key audience.

Draw conclusions using clear, specific, and accurate examples in a paper or presentation.

Give clear attribution to sources within writing or presentations.

Use distinctions between fact and opinion to determine the credibility of multiple sources.