7th Grade Social Studies – World History & Geography: Atlantic Exploration to Modern Day
Atlantic exploration, revolutions, industrialization, world wars, and the contemporary world with integrated geography and ELA literacy.
Standards at a Glance
Course Focus
7.1 Atlantic Exploration & First Global Exchanges
7.2 Revolutions & New Ideas
7.3 Industrialization, Imperialism, & Global Inequalities
7.4 World Wars & Global Upheaval
7.5 Cold War, Globalization, & the Contemporary World
Overview
7th Grade Standards at a Glance – World History & Geography
A quick view of how 7th graders move from the Atlantic explorations and first global exchanges through revolutions, industrialization and imperialism, world wars, and the modern globalized world—while strengthening geography and literacy skills.
7.1 Atlantic Exploration & First Global Exchanges
Social Studies Focus
- Explain causes of European exploration and competition for new sea routes.
- Describe early contacts among Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
- Analyze the Columbian Exchange and its impact on people and environments.
Geography Skills
- Map exploration routes, ocean currents, and new global connections.
- Connect physical geography to patterns of settlement, trade, and conquest.
ELA Integration
- Reading: journals, maps, and informational texts about exploration.
- Writing: explanatory and argumentative pieces on the costs and benefits of exploration.
- Speaking/Listening: structured debates and discussions using evidence from sources.
7.2 Revolutions & New Ideas
Social Studies Focus
- Examine the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment ideas.
- Analyze political revolutions in the Atlantic world (U.S., France, Haiti, Latin America).
- Connect new ideas about rights and government to social and political change.
Geography Skills
- Locate revolutionary centers and spread of revolutionary movements on maps.
- Link regional conditions to different revolutionary paths and outcomes.
ELA Integration
- Reading: excerpts from revolutionary documents and Enlightenment texts.
- Writing: claims and evidence essays about causes and consequences of revolutions.
- Speaking/Listening: seminars comparing different revolutions and their legacies.
7.3 Industrialization, Imperialism, & Global Inequalities
Social Studies Focus
- Describe the Industrial Revolution, urbanization, and social change.
- Explain imperialism in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific and responses to it.
- Analyze how industrialization and imperialism created global inequalities.
Geography Skills
- Interpret maps of industrial centers, colonial empires, and resource extraction.
- Connect environment and location to patterns of conquest, resistance, and growth.
ELA Integration
- Reading: informational texts, political cartoons, and primary accounts of work and empire.
- Writing: cause/effect and problem/solution pieces on industrial and imperial changes.
- Speaking/Listening: debates on imperialism and social reform using historical evidence.
7.4 World Wars & Global Upheaval
Social Studies Focus
- Summarize causes and major events of World War I and World War II.
- Explain the rise of totalitarian regimes and global depression.
- Recognize the human impact of war, genocide, and mass violence at an appropriate depth.
Geography Skills
- Use maps to locate alliances, fronts, and key battles in both world wars.
- Connect geography to strategy, borders, and postwar changes.
ELA Integration
- Reading: timelines, primary accounts, and informational texts on global conflict.
- Writing: explanatory and analytical paragraphs on causes, turning points, and consequences.
- Speaking/Listening: presentations and discussions using primary and secondary sources.
7.5 Cold War, Globalization, & the Contemporary World
Social Studies Focus
- Explain the Cold War, decolonization, and new nations.
- Describe globalization, international organizations, and human rights efforts.
- Investigate contemporary global challenges and civic responsibilities.
Geography Skills
- Interpret modern thematic maps and data (population, trade, conflict, environment).
- Analyze patterns of interdependence and regional cooperation and conflict.
ELA Integration
- Reading: current events, historical overviews, and human rights documents.
- Writing: research-based explanations and arguments about global issues.
- Speaking/Listening: collaborative discussions and solution-focused presentations.
Course Focus
7th Grade Social Studies – World History & Geography: Atlantic Exploration to Modern Day
In 7th grade, students follow the transformation of the world from the first Atlantic explorations and global exchanges through revolutions, industrialization and imperialism, two world wars, the Cold War, and the emergence of today’s interconnected world. They examine how power, ideas, technology, and resistance shaped societies and relationships among regions.
Throughout the year, students deepen geography skills by analyzing political and thematic maps, tracking shifting borders and alliances, tracing trade and migration, and connecting place to power and inequality. They develop ELA literacy by reading complex informational texts and adapted primary sources, writing explanations and arguments supported by evidence, and engaging in academic discussions about continuity, change, and global interdependence.
Content Focus: Students explain why European powers turned to ocean exploration, how they encountered and interacted with peoples in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, and how the Columbian Exchange reshaped environments and societies on multiple continents.
Social Studies Indicators
- 7.1.1.SS – Explain political, economic, religious, and technological reasons for European ocean exploration and competition for new trade routes.
- 7.1.2.SS – Describe early contacts and exchanges among Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, including cooperation, conflict, and conquest.
- 7.1.3.SS – Analyze the Columbian Exchange and its effects on populations, ecosystems, agriculture, and culture in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
- 7.1.4.SS – Explain how early Atlantic trade and colonization laid foundations for later global systems, including the transatlantic slave trade (introduced at an age-appropriate depth).
Geography Integration
- Use world maps to trace key exploration routes, including Portuguese, Spanish, English, and French voyages.
- Interpret maps showing prevailing winds, ocean currents, and coastal features that shaped exploration paths and settlement choices.
- Identify major regions and ports involved in early Atlantic trade and exchanges.
- Create annotated “before and after” maps showing changes in crops, animals, and diseases across hemispheres due to the Columbian Exchange.
ELA Literacy Integration
- Reading: Analyze excerpts from explorers’ journals, Indigenous accounts (where available), and informational texts about exploration and exchange; identify point of view and bias.
- Writing: Compose explanatory or argumentative paragraphs on the benefits and costs of Atlantic exploration for different groups, citing textual and geographic evidence.
- Speaking/Listening: Participate in structured debates or discussions about exploration, using evidence from primary and secondary sources to support claims.
- Language: Use academic vocabulary such as navigation, expedition, colonization, exchange, conquest, indigenous accurately in oral and written work.
Content Focus: Students explore how the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment transformed ideas about knowledge, power, and rights, and how these ideas inspired political revolutions in the Atlantic world.
Social Studies Indicators
- 7.2.1.SS – Summarize key ideas and figures of the Scientific Revolution and explain how they challenged traditional authority.
- 7.2.2.SS – Describe major Enlightenment thinkers and ideas (such as natural rights, separation of powers, social contract) and connect them to changing views of government.
- 7.2.3.SS – Explain causes and major events of the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions and selected Latin American independence movements.
- 7.2.4.SS – Analyze how revolutionary movements spread ideas about liberty, equality, and citizenship while also creating new tensions and limits.
Geography Integration
- Locate key centers of intellectual change (such as major European cities and universities) and revolutionary events on regional and world maps.
- Connect geographic factors (distance from colonial powers, local economies, social structures) to why revolutions developed differently across regions.
- Use maps to visualize how revolutionary ideas and movements spread across the Atlantic world.
- Create layered maps or timelines that pair major events with locations and shifts in political boundaries.
ELA Literacy Integration
- Reading: Read adapted excerpts from Enlightenment writings and revolutionary documents (such as declarations and constitutions) and determine central ideas.
- Writing: Write claim-evidence-reasoning paragraphs comparing two revolutions or explaining how ideas about rights influenced political change.
- Speaking/Listening: Engage in Socratic seminars or structured academic conversations about whether revolutions achieved their goals, using evidence from texts and maps.
- Language: Use terms such as Enlightenment, revolution, constitution, rights, social contract, nationalism with precision in academic discussions and writing.
Content Focus: Students analyze how the Industrial Revolution transformed economies and societies, how industrial powers expanded empires, and how colonized peoples responded, creating patterns of inequality that shaped the modern world.
Social Studies Indicators
- 7.3.1.SS – Describe key features of the Industrial Revolution (new energy sources, factories, mass production) and their impact on work, cities, and daily life.
- 7.3.2.SS – Explain social and economic changes such as urbanization, class tensions, and reform movements.
- 7.3.3.SS – Analyze motives for and forms of imperialism in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.
- 7.3.4.SS – Describe different forms of resistance to imperial rule and the long-term effects of imperialism on colonized regions.
Geography Integration
- Interpret maps showing industrial regions, natural resources, trade routes, and population growth during industrialization.
- Use imperial maps to identify which European powers controlled territories in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific and how borders changed over time.
- Connect physical geography and resources to the locations targeted for imperial expansion.
- Create map-based case studies that show the relationship between resource extraction, transportation networks, and urban growth.
ELA Literacy Integration
- Reading: Analyze informational texts, political cartoons, and adapted primary sources (such as factory reports or anti-imperialist speeches) for point of view and argument.
- Writing: Write cause/effect or argument essays explaining how industrialization and imperialism created and reinforced global inequalities.
- Speaking/Listening: Participate in debates or structured discussions about the justifications for imperialism and responses from colonized peoples.
- Language: Use vocabulary such as industrialization, urbanization, imperialism, colony, resource, exploitation accurately in complex sentences and extended writing.
Content Focus: Students examine the causes, major events, and consequences of World War I and World War II, including the rise of totalitarianism, economic crises, and the human impact of global conflict and genocide.
Social Studies Indicators
- 7.4.1.SS – Explain long-term and immediate causes of World War I, including militarism, alliances, imperial rivalries, and nationalism.
- 7.4.2.SS – Summarize major events and outcomes of World War I and how the war reshaped borders and global power.
- 7.4.3.SS – Describe the global depression and the rise of totalitarian regimes in the interwar period.
- 7.4.4.SS – Explain causes and major turning points of World War II, including aggression by Axis powers and responses by Allied nations.
- 7.4.5.SS – Recognize the human cost of war, including genocide such as the Holocaust, at a developmentally appropriate level, and identify international efforts to address these crimes.
Geography Integration
- Use maps to locate alliances, fronts, and major battles in World War I and World War II.
- Interpret maps showing territorial changes, new nations, and spheres of influence after each war.
- Connect physical geography (mountain ranges, coastlines, climate) to military strategies and challenges.
- Create “conflict maps” that pair key events, turning points, and peace settlements with specific locations.
ELA Literacy Integration
- Reading: Read timelines, maps, historical overviews, and age-appropriate personal testimonies from wartime; identify cause/effect and sequence of events.
- Writing: Write explanatory essays or extended paragraphs that analyze causes of a world war or the impact of a specific turning point, using multiple sources.
- Speaking/Listening: Present short “event briefings” or participate in jigsaw discussions, teaching peers about specific battles, decisions, or experiences.
- Language: Use terms such as total war, alliance, armistice, totalitarian, genocide, treaty properly and precisely in academic contexts.
Content Focus: Students investigate the Cold War and its end, decolonization and the rise of new nations, the intensification of globalization, and contemporary global challenges and civic responsibilities.
Social Studies Indicators
- 7.5.1.SS – Explain the Cold War as an era of tension and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies.
- 7.5.2.SS – Identify key Cold War events and crises (such as Berlin, Cuba, Korea, and Vietnam) and their global significance.
- 7.5.3.SS – Describe decolonization and the creation of new nations in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, including opportunities and challenges.
- 7.5.4.SS – Explain features of globalization, including advances in technology, trade, communication, and international organizations.
- 7.5.5.SS – Investigate contemporary global issues (such as environmental change, migration, inequality, and human rights) and describe ways individuals and communities can respond.
Geography Integration
- Use Cold War era maps to identify alliances, spheres of influence, and divided regions (for example, East/West Europe, Korea).
- Interpret decolonization maps to see how national boundaries shifted and new states formed.
- Analyze thematic maps and data visualizations (population, trade, environment, conflict) to identify patterns of interdependence and inequality.
- Create map-based projects that highlight one contemporary global issue, showing where and how it affects different regions.
ELA Literacy Integration
- Reading: Read informational texts, case studies, and human rights documents related to the Cold War, decolonization, and modern global issues; evaluate claims and evidence.
- Writing: Write short research-based explanations or arguments about a global issue or historical turning point, integrating data from texts, maps, and charts.
- Speaking/Listening: Participate in problem-solving discussions and presentations that propose actions or solutions to contemporary challenges.
- Language: Use vocabulary such as ideology, decolonization, globalization, interdependence, human rights, sustainability accurately in academic speaking and writing.
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