(BC Social Studies Grade 7) The Ancient World to the 7th Century

A new British Columbia social studies series designed and developed to provide a student-centred, user-friendly, flexible and engaging set of resources to fully support teachers and students.

The Ancient World to the 7th Century

This course examines the early developments of human cultures around the world, the challenges early peoples faced, and the foundational developments that endure today.

• Students discover the connections between life today and life in the ancient past and explore how individuals, cultures, and the human family all have stories that begin in the past and carry lessons for the present.
• In the student resources, emphasis is on developing good questions and opportunities for student-­‐initiated inquiry, examining events and developments, applying concepts, and drawing conclusions.
• The student resources will support students in their appreciation of the connections between their lives and our shared human past, as well as the diversity of human culture.
• Students will discover how different cultures survived, thrived, and sometimes died— and why.

Topic Overviews

The Human Story

This topic explains why and how we study history, connecting students’ lives to the past and helping them to see the past in the present. Includes: ways of knowing, oral history, worldviews, and perspectives. The topic begins with the student, asking: What makes your story? What makes you human? This connects “the story of me” to the human story.

One Family

Students explore how human cultures reveal “what it means to be human.” Includes: the common features of human cultures; Indigenous Peoples (“from time immemorial”), human diversity, anthropological origins, features and characteristics of cultures and civilizations, and how cultures survive, thrive, and sometimes disappear.

A Place in the World

Students explore the impact of the land/place on culture. Includes: climate, landforms, natural resources; wayfinding, and mapmaking.

Innovations

Students explore material culture—the artifacts, technology, and architecture of ancient cultures—and study what this reveals about those cultures, what it tells us about the challenges people faced, and how they solved problems.

Ways of Believing

Students explore the common human need to formulate and express belief systems. Includes: the spread of major religions and the reasons behind them.

Rules and Rulers

Students explore political and legal systems and structures in the ancient world. Includes: how and why these systems and structures evolved, and their continuing relevance in the contemporary world.

Interactions: Ancient Trade Networks

Students explore how cultures interacted through trade, transportation, conflict, and cooperation, as well as the consequences for their own culture.