Social Studies 6

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Big Ideas

Grandes idées

Economic self-interest can be a significant cause of conflict among peoples and governments.

Complex global problems require international cooperation to make difficult choices for the future.

Systems of government vary in their respect for human rights and freedoms.

Media sources can both positively and negatively affect our understanding of important events and issues.

Curricular Competencies

Students are expected to be able to do the following:

Use Social Studies inquiry processes and skills to — ask questions; gather, interpret, and analyze ideas; and communicate findings and decisions

Key skills:
- With teacher and peer support, select a relevant problem or issue for inquiry
- Use comparing, classifying, inferring, imagining, verifying, identifying relationships, and summarizing to clarify and define a problem or issue
- Draw conclusions about a problem or issue
- Locate and map continents, oceans, and seas using simple grids, scales, and legends
- Locate the prime meridian, equator, Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, Arctic Circle, and Antarctic Circle on a globe or map of the world
- Recognize the relationship between time zones and lines of longitude
- Compare how graphs, tables, aerial photos, and maps represent information
- Represent the same information in two or more graphic forms (e.g., graphs, tables, thematic maps)
- Clarify a topic for presentation
- Collect and organize information on a topic of your choice (e.g., a selected country)
- Draw conclusions from collected information
- Plan, prepare, and deliver a presentation on a selected topic (e.g., a country of their choice)
- Prepare a bibliography, using a consistent style to cite books, magazines, interviews, web sites, and other sources used
- Select ways to clarify a specific problem or issue (e.g., discussion, debate, research)
- Defend a position on a national or global issue
- Collect and organize information to support a course of action
- Identify opportunities for civic participation at the school, community, provincial, national, and global levels
- Individually, or in groups, implement a plan of action to address a problem or issue (e.g., fundraising campaign, clothing or food drive, letter writing to a politician, editorial in the school or community newspaper, petition)

Develop a plan of action to address a selected problem or issue

Collect and organize information to support a course of action.
Individually, or in groups, implement a plan of action to address a problem or issue (e.g., fundraising campaign, clothing or food drive, letter writing to a politician, editorial in the school or community newspaper, petition).

Construct arguments defending the significance of individuals/groups, places, events, or developments (significance)

Ask questions, corroborate inferences, and draw conclusions about the content and origins of a variety of sources, including mass media

Sample activities:
- Compare a range of points of view on a problem or issue
- Compare and contrast media coverage of a controversial issue (e.g., climate change, resource management)
- With peer and teacher support, determine criteria for evaluating information sources for credibility and reliability (e.g., context, authentic voice, source, objectivity, evidence, authorship)
- Apply criteria to evaluate selected sources for credibility and reliability
- Distinguish between primary sources and secondary sources

(evidence)

Sequence objects, images, or events, and recognize the positive and negative aspects of continuities and changes in the past and present (continuity and change)

Differentiate between short- and long-term causes, and intended and unintended consequences, of events, decisions, or developments

Sample activities:
- Explain the historical basis of selected contemporary issues
- Give examples of how your actions may have consequences for others locally or globally (e.g., effect of consumer choices)

(cause and consequence)

Take stakeholders’ perspectives on issues, developments, or events by making inferences about their beliefs, values, and motivations

Sample activities:
- Compare and assess two or more perspectives on a local or global problem or issue
- Consider reasons for differing perspectives (e.g., personal experiences, beliefs and values)
- Key questions:
- How can the exercise of power and authority affect an individual’s rights?
- Should individuals be willing give up some personal freedoms for the sake of collective well-being?

(perspective)

Make ethical judgments about events, decisions, or actions that consider the conditions of a particular time and place, and assess appropriate ways to respond

Key questions:
- What are the rights and responsibilities of a global citizen?

(ethical judgment)

Content

Students are expected to know the following:

the urbanization and migration of people

Sample topics:
- land usage
- access to water
- pollution and waste management
- population density
- transit and transportation
Key questions:
- Why do the majority of people in the world now live in urban centres?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of urbanization?

global poverty and inequality issues, including class structure and gender

Sample topics:
- treatment of minority populations in Canada and in other cultures and societies you have studied (e.g., segregation, assimilation, integration, and pluralism; multiculturalism policies; settlement patterns; residential schools, South African Apartheid, the Holocaust, internment of Japanese-Canadians, Head Tax on Chinese immigrants; caste and class systems)
- caste system
- unequal distribution of wealth
- corruption
- lack of judicial process
- infant mortality
- women’s rights
- social justice
- treatment of indigenous people
Key questions:
- How does discrimination and prejudice in modern Canadian society compare with that during other periods in Canada’s past or in other societies (e.g., systemic discrimination, overt racism)?

roles of individuals, governmental organizations, and NGOs, including groups representing indigenous peoples

Sample topics:
- United Nations
- International Criminal Court
- World Trade Organization
- international aid
- activists
- lobby groups
- international aid groups (e.g., Medecins sans Frontieres [Doctors without Borders])
- Private foundations (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)

different systems of government

Sample activity:
- Compare characteristics of the federal government in Canada with those of one or more other countries, including:
- roles and responsibilities of members of government (e.g., prime minister, president, governor, MP, senator)
- components of government (House of Commons, House of Lords, senate, province, state, prefecture, canton)
- government decision-making structures and forms of rule (e.g., monarchy, republic, dictatorship, parliamentary democracy)
- electoral processes (e.g., political parties, voting, representation)
- Sample topic:
- indigenous governance
Key questions:
- Who benefits from different forms of government and decision making?
- How would decisions be different under a different form of government?

economic policies and resource management, including effects on indigenous peoples

Sample topics:
- deforestation
- mining
- oil and gas
- fisheries
- infrastructure development
- relocation of communities
Key questions:
- How should decisions about economic policy and resource management be made?
- How should societies balance economic development with the protection of the environment?

globalization and economic interdependence

Sample topics:
- trade
- imports and exports
- G20 (Group of Twenty)
- European Union
- North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA)
- currency
- tariffs and taxation
- trade imbalances

international cooperation and responses to global issues

Sample topics:
- environmental issues
- human trafficking
- child labour
- epidemic/pandemic response
- fisheries management
- resource use and misuse
- drug trafficking
- food distribution and famine

regional and international conflict

Sample topics:
- war
- genocide
- child soldiers
- boundary disputes
- religious and ethnic violence
- terrorism

media technologies and coverage of current events

Sample topics:
- ownership of media
- propaganda
- editorial bias
- sensationalism
- freedom of the press
- social media uses and abuses
Key questions:
- How does the media influence public perception of major events?
- Are some media sources more trustworthy than others? Explain your answer.

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