Lower School
The social studies program in the Lower School revolves around thematic learning; often these themes are integrated with other discipline areas. The program at each grade level includes experiences for students to study a variety of cultures and cultural diversity. A strand of time, continuity, and change is also included in each grade level, emphasizing the need to study the past in order to gain a greater understanding of the present and future. Students become more and more familiar with the United States in terms of government, civic ideals and practices, and geography. A study of basic economic reasoning helps students to understand a system of producing, buying, and selling of goods.
Middle School
The Middle School history program is an exploratory survey designed to encourage students to investigate their world, past and present. Through the perspectives of geography, anthropology, history, sociology, political science, and economics students gain insights into how people around the globe live and have lived, the issues they face and faced, and how we are connected to one another. Skills of chronological and spatial thinking (i.e. interpreting time lines, and map and globe skills); research, evidence, and point of view (i.e. differentiating between primary and secondary sources, distinguishing fact from fiction, and posing relevant questions); and historical interpretation (i.e. summarizing key events, identifying human and physical characteristics of places of study, understanding cause and effect, and conducting cost-benefit analyses) are emphasized and used as learning tools. The sixth grade curricular focus is Ancient History, World History in seventh grade, and United States History in eighth grade.
