California: 4th-Grade Standards
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CA.4.1. Content Standard: California
A Changing State: Students demonstrate an understanding of the physical and human geographic features that define places and regions in California.
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4.1.1. Performance Standard:
Explain and use the coordinate grid system of latitude and longitude to determine the absolute locations of places in California and on Earth.
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4.1.2. Performance Standard:
Distinguish between the North and South Poles; the equator and the prime meridian; the tropics; and the hemispheres, using coordinates to plot locations.
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4.1.3. Performance Standard:
Identify the state capital and describe the various regions of California, including how their characteristics and physical environments (e.g., water, landforms, vegetation, climate) affect human activity.
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4.1.4. Performance Standard:
Identify the locations of the Pacific Ocean, rivers, valleys, and mountain passes and explain their effects on the growth of towns.
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4.1.5. Performance Standard:
Use maps, charts, and pictures to describe how communities in California vary in land use, vegetation, wildlife, climate, population density, architecture, services, and transportation.
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CA.4.2. Content Standard: California
A Changing State: Students describe the social, political, cultural, and economic life and interactions among people of California from the pre-Columbian societies to the Spanish mission and Mexican rancho periods.
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4.2.1. Performance Standard:
Discuss the major nations of California Indians, including their geographic distribution, economic activities, legends, and religious beliefs; and describe how they depended on, adapted to, and modified the physical environment by cultivation of land and use of sea resources.
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4.2.2. Performance Standard:
Identify the early land and sea routes to, and European settlements in, California with a focus on the exploration of the North Pacific (e.g., by Captain James Cook, Vitus Bering, Juan Cabrillo), noting especially the importance of mountains, deserts, ocean currents, and wind patterns.
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4.2.3. Performance Standard:
Describe the Spanish exploration and colonization of California, including the relationships among soldiers, missionaries, and Indians (e.g., Juan Crespi, Junipero Serra, Gaspar de Portola).
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4.2.4. Performance Standard:
Describe the mapping of, geographic basis of, and economic factors in the placement and function of the Spanish missions; and understand how the mission system expanded the influence of Spain and Catholicism throughout New Spain and Latin America.
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4.2.5. Performance Standard:
Describe the daily lives of the people, native and nonnative, who occupied the presidios, missions, ranchos, and pueblos.
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4.2.6. Performance Standard:
Discuss the role of the Franciscans in changing the economy of California from a hunter-gatherer economy to an agricultural economy.
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4.2.7. Performance Standard:
Describe the effects of the Mexican War for Independence on Alta California, including its effects on the territorial boundaries of North America.
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4.2.8. Performance Standard:
Discuss the period of Mexican rule in California and its attributes, including land grants, secularization of the missions, and the rise of the rancho economy.
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CA.4.3. Content Standard: California
A Changing State: Students explain the economic, social, and political life in California from the establishment of the Bear Flag Republic through the Mexican-American War, the Gold Rush, and the granting of statehood.
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4.3.1. Performance Standard:
Identify the locations of Mexican settlements in California and those of other settlements, including Fort Ross and Sutter's Fort.
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4.3.2. Performance Standard:
Compare how and why people traveled to California and the routes they traveled (e.g., James Beckwourth, John Bidwell, John C. Fremont, Pio Pico).
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4.3.3. Performance Standard:
Analyze the effects of the Gold Rush on settlements, daily life, politics, and the physical environment (e.g., using biographies of John Sutter, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, Louise Clapp).
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4.3.4. Performance Standard:
Study the lives of women who helped build early California (e.g., Biddy Mason).
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4.3.5. Performance Standard:
Discuss how California became a state and how its new government differed from those during the Spanish and Mexican periods.
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CA.4.4. Content Standard: California
A Changing State: Students explain how California became an agricultural and industrial power, tracing the transformation of the California economy and its political and cultural development since the 1850s.
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4.4.1. Performance Standard:
Understand the story and lasting influence of the Pony Express, Overland Mail Service, Western Union, and the building of the transcontinental railroad, including the contributions of Chinese workers to its construction.
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4.4.2. Performance Standard:
Explain how the Gold Rush transformed the economy of California, including the types of products produced and consumed, changes in towns (e.g., Sacramento, San Francisco), and economic conflicts between diverse groups of people.
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4.4.3. Performance Standard:
Discuss immigration and migration to California between 1850 and 1900, including the diverse composition of those who came; the countries of origin and their relative locations; and conflicts and accords among the diverse groups (e.g., the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act).
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4.4.4. Performance Standard:
Describe rapid American immigration, internal migration, settlement, and the growth of towns and cities (e.g., Los Angeles).
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4.4.5. Performance Standard:
Discuss the effects of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and World War II on California.
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4.4.6. Performance Standard:
Describe the development and locations of new industries since the turn of the century, such as the aerospace industry, electronics industry, large-scale commercial agriculture and irrigation projects, the oil and automobile industries, communications and defense industries, and important trade links with the Pacific Basin.
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4.4.7. Performance Standard:
Trace the evolution of California's water system into a network of dams, aqueducts, and reservoirs.
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4.4.8. Performance Standard:
Describe the history and development of California's public education system, including universities and community colleges.
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4.4.9. Performance Standard:
Analyze the impact of twentieth-century Californians on the nation's artistic and cultural development, including the rise of the entertainment industry (e.g., Louis B. Meyer, Walt Disney, John Steinbeck, Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, John Wayne).
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CA.4.5. Content Standard: California
A Changing State: Students understand the structures, functions, and powers of the local, state, and federal governments as described in the U.S. Constitution.
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4.5.1. Performance Standard:
Discuss what the U.S. Constitution is and why it is important (i.e., a written document that defines the structure and purpose of the U.S. government and describes the shared powers of federal, state, and local governments).
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4.5.2. Performance Standard:
Understand the purpose of the California Constitution, its key principles, and its relationship to the U.S. Constitution.
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4.5.3. Performance Standard:
Describe the similarities (e.g., written documents, rule of law, consent of the governed, three separate branches) and differences (e.g., scope of jurisdiction, limits on government powers, use of the military) among federal, state, and local governments.
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4.5.4. Performance Standard:
Explain the structures and functions of state governments, including the roles and responsibilities of their elected officials.
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4.5.5. Performance Standard:
Describe the components of California's governance structure (e.g., cities and towns, Indian rancherias and reservations, counties, school districts).
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CA.K-5.HSS Content Standard: Historical and Social Sciences Analysis Skills
The intellectual skills noted below are to be learned through, and applied to, the content standards for kindergarten through grade five. They are to be assessed only in conjunction with the content standards in kindergarten through grade five. In addition to the standards for kindergarten through grade five, students demonstrate the following intellectual, reasoning, reflection, and research skills.
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K-5.CST. Performance Standard:
Chronological and Spatial Thinking
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K-5.1. Grade Level Expectation:
Students place key events and people of the historical era they are studying in a chronological sequence and within a spatial context; they interpret time lines.
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K-5.2. Grade Level Expectation:
Students correctly apply terms related to time, including past, present, future, decade, century, and generation.
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K-5.3. Grade Level Expectation:
Students explain how the present is connected to the past, identifying both similarities and differences between the two, and how some things change over time and some things stay the same.
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K-5.4. Grade Level Expectation:
Students use map and globe skills to determine the absolute locations of places and interpret information available through a map's or globe's legend, scale, and symbolic representations.
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K-5.5. Grade Level Expectation:
Students judge the significance of the relative location of a place (e.g., proximity to a harbor, on trade routes) and analyze how relative advantages or disadvantages can change over time.
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K-5.REPV. Performance Standard:
Research, Evidence, and Point of View
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K-5.1. Grade Level Expectation:
Students differentiate between primary and secondary sources.
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K-5.2. Grade Level Expectation:
Students pose relevant questions about events they encounter in historical documents, eyewitness accounts, oral histories, letters, diaries, artifacts, photographs, maps, artworks, and architecture.
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K-5.3. Grade Level Expectation:
Students distinguish fact from fiction by comparing documentary sources on historical figures and events with fictionalized characters and events.
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K-5.HI. Performance Standard:
Historical Interpretation
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K-5.1. Grade Level Expectation:
Students summarize the key events of the era they are studying and explain the historical contexts of those events.
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K-5.2. Grade Level Expectation:
Students identify the human and physical characteristics of the places they are studying and explain how those features form the unique character of those places.
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K-5.3. Grade Level Expectation:
Students identify and interpret the multiple causes and effects of historical events.
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K-5.4. Grade Level Expectation:
Students conduct cost-benefit analyses of historical and current events.
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