Kansas Standard by Grade Level
for
Civics-Government, Economics, Geography, and History
CIVICS-GOVERNMENT – 8th Grade
Civics-Government Standard: The student uses a working knowledge and
understanding of governmental
systems of the United States and other nations with an emphasis on the
U. S. Constitution, the necessity for the rule of law, the civic values
of the American republican government, and the rights, privileges, and
responsibilities to become active participants in the democratic
process.
Benchmark 1: The student understands the rule of law as it applies to
family, school, local, state and national governments.
Indicators: The student:
8 D 1. distinguishes between state and federal law as it applies to
individual citizens.
8 D 2. distinguishes between criminal and civil law as it applies to
individual citizens.
8 D 3. explains how juveniles and adults are treated differently under
the law.
11 D 4. evaluates the importance of the rule of law in establishing
limits on both state and federal government and the governed,
protecting individual rights, and promoting the common good.
Benchmark 2: The student understands the shared ideals and the
diversity of American society and political culture.
Indicators: The student:
8 D 1. defines the rights guaranteed, granted and protected by the
state and federal constitution and the amendments including the Bill of
Rights.
° 3. explains the importance of respect for the law, a good education,
work ethic, equal opportunity, and volunteerism.
Benchmark 3: The student understands how the U. S. Constitution
allocates and restricts power and responsibility in the government.
Indicators: The student:
8 D 1. compares the U. S. and Kansas Constitutions to identify the
major responsibilities of federal, state, and local governments.
8 D 2. explains how powers are distributed among the legislative,
executive, and judicial branches at the state and national levels (i.
e., checks and balances, separation of powers).
8 D 3. compares the steps of how a bill becomes a law at state and
national levels.
4. describes the amendment procedure.
6. analyzes the Declaration of Independence, the U. S. Constitution,
including the Pre-amble, the Kansas Constitution and other writings to
identify the essential ideas of American Constitutional governments.
Benchmark 4: The student identifies and examines the rights, privileges
and responsibilities in becoming an active civic participant.
Indicators:
The student:
4. knows the correct procedures for contacting appropriate
representatives for the purpose of expressing opinions or asking for
help at local, state, and national levels.
Benchmark 5: The student understands various systems of governments and
how nations and international organizations interact.
Indicators:
The student:
8 D 1. analyzes the basic features of state and national political
systems and describes the ways each system meets or fails to meet the
needs and wants of its citizens (i. e., republic, democracy, monarchy,
dictatorship).
2. describes how powers are acquired, used, and justified at state and
national levels (e. g., of, by, for the people).
ECONOMICS – 8th Grade
Economics Standard: The student uses a working knowledge and
understanding of major economic concepts, issues, and systems of the
United States and other nations; and applies decision making skills as
a consumer, producer, saver, investor, and citizen in an interdependent
world.
Benchmark 1: The student understands how scarcity of resources requires
choices.
Indicators:
The student:
11 D 1. analyzes the effect of scarcity on the price, production,
consumption, and distribution of goods or services.
Benchmark 2: The student understands how the market economy works in
the United States.
Indicators:
The student:
° 1. analyzes the impact of inflation or deflation on the value of
money and people's purchasing power.
2. explains how relative price and people's economic decisions
influence the market system.
8 D 3. describes the four basic types of earned income (i. e., wages
and salaries, rent, interest, profit).
8 D 4. explains the factors that cause unemployment (i. e., down
sizing, outsourcing, seasonal demand for jobs, changes in skills needed
by employers, other economic influences).
11 D 5. uses a diagram to explain the importance of the circular flow
to a market economy (illustration: firms make products, sell the
products, households earn income and buy the products, the money goes
to the firms who use the money to pay for the resources they use or
hire [workers], who take the money back to the households, and so on).
6. describes the positive and negative incentives to which
entrepreneurs respond (e. g., profits, opportunity to be their own
boss, the chance to achieve recognition, long hours, financial risk,
increased responsibility).
Benchmark 3: The student analyzes how different economic systems,
institutions, and incentives affect people.
Indicators: The student:
8 D 1. explains how positive and negative incentives affect the way
people behave (i. e., taking a driver's education class to reduce
insurance costs; seeking a job with higher wages; paying a fine for
library books returned late; losing pay on the job for an unexcused
absence).
8 D 2. describes the types of specialized economic institutions found
in market economies (i. e., corporations, partnerships, labor unions,
banks, nonprofit organizations).
8 D 3. gives examples of changes that might influence international
trade (i. e., U. S. sanctions, weather, exchange rate, war, boycotts,
embargoes).
Benchmark 4: The student analyzes the role of the government in the
economy.
Indicators:
The student:
8 D 1. gives examples of choices the government must make with limited
resources (i. e., highways, welfare, defense, education, social
security).
8 D 2. compares and contrasts government revenues and expenditures.
4. gives examples of how tariffs and quotas affect consumers and the
prices of domestic goods.
Benchmark 5: The student makes effective decisions as a consumer,
producer, saver, investor, and citizen.
Indicators:
The student:
8 D 1. uses product information to identify costs and benefits to make
informed choices among alternatives.
8 D 2. uses the concept of trade-offs to make a decision.
GEOGRAPHY – 8th Grade
Geography Standard: The student uses a working knowledge and
understanding of the spatial organization of Earth's surface and
relationships among people, places, and physical and human environments
in order to explain the interactions that occur in our interconnected
world.
Benchmark 1: Maps and Location: The student uses maps, graphic
representations, tools, and technolo-gies
to locate, use, and present information about people, places, and
environments.
Indicators:
The student:
8 D 1. locates major political and physical features of Earth from
memory and compares the relative locations of those features (See
Appendix 2 for assessment items).
° 2. develops and uses different kinds of maps, globes, graphs, charts,
databases, and models.
3. uses mental maps to answer geographic questions, and recognizes that
people's mental maps reflect an individual's attitudes toward places.
° 4. evaluates the relative merits of maps, graphic representations,
tools, and technologies in terms of their value in solving geographic
problems (e. g., map projections, aerial photo-graphs, satellite
images, geographic information systems).
° 5. uses geographic tools and technologies to pose and answer
questions about past and present spatial distributions and patterns on
Earth (illustrations: mountain ranges, river systems, field patterns,
settlements, transportation routes).
Benchmark 2: Regions: The student analyzes the spatial organization of
people, places, and environments that form regions on the Earth's
surface.
Indicators:
The student:
° 1. identifies and compares the physical and human characteristics of
world regions (e. g., Kansas and Eastern United States, locations,
topography, climate, vegetation, resources, people, religion, language,
customs, government, agriculture, industry, architecture, arts,
learning; Middle East and North Africa, South Asian, Europe, Latin
America, Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, Anglo America).
8 D 2. explains how U. S. and world regions are interdependent (i. e.,
through trade, diffusion of ideas, human migration, economic networks,
international conflicts, participation in international organizations).
Benchmark 3: Physical Systems: The student understands Earth's physical
systems and how physical processes shape Earth's surface.
Indicators:
The student:
8 D 2. explains patterns in the physical environment in terms of
physical processes (i. e., plate tectonics, glaciation, erosion and
deposition, hydrologic cycle, ocean and atmospheric circulation).
Benchmark 4: Human Systems: The student understands how economic,
political, cultural, and social
processes interact to shape patterns of human populations,
interdependence, cooperation, and conflict.
Indicators:
The student:
8 D 1. describes and analyzes the characteristics, structure, and
patterns of different populations through the use of demographic
concepts (i. e., population pyramids, birth/ death rates, population
growth rates, migration patterns).
2. analyzes the economic, political, and social factors that contribute
to human migration (e. g., mobility, push-pull factors, conflict, laws,
regional integration).
° 3. describes the patterns of cultural diffusion and the resulting
distinctive cultural landscapes (e. g., religion, language, technology,
customs, crops, foreign language newspapers and signs, ethnic
neighborhoods, surnames, foods, dress, religious symbols and buildings,
housing types, agricultural methods, settlement patterns).
8 D 4. explains the primary geographic causes for world trade and
economic interdependence (i. e., location advantage, resource
distribution, labor cost, technology, trade networks and
organizations).
5. describes the consequences of industrialization and urbanization
patterns (illustration: factors effecting location of industry, impact
of rise or decline of a manufacturing area, changing spatial patterns
of major industries, changes and effects of settlement patterns, links
between industrial development and rural-urban migration).
6. explains how cooperation and conflict among peoples contribute to
political, economic, and social division of Earth's surface (e. g.,
local land use controversies, international hot spots, local
cooperative efforts, international alliances, European Union, NATO,
United Nations).
Benchmark 5: Human-Environment Interactions: The student understands
the effects of interactions between human and physical systems.
Indicators:
The student:
3. describes the local, national, and international consequences of the
use or misuse of resources (e. g., resource movement and consumption,
relationship between access to resources and living standards,
relationship between competition for resources and world conflicts).
8 D 4. evaluates different viewpoints regarding resource use (i. e.,
transportation, water use, mining, timber, agriculture, labor,
capital).
UNITED STATES HISTORY – 8th Grade
History Standard: The student uses a working knowledge and
understanding of significant individuals, groups, ideas, events, eras,
and developments in the history of Kansas, the United States, and the
world,
utilizing essential analytical and research skills.
Benchmark 1: The student uses a working knowledge and understanding of
individuals, groups, ideas,
developments, and turning points in the beginnings of the Republic
(1800-1850).
Indicators:
The student:
8 D 1. explains the territorial expansion of the United States between
1801 and 1861, and how it affected relations with external powers and
American Indians (i. e., Louisiana Purchase, Manifest Destiny).
2. analyzes the changes in American lives due to the industrial
revolution and the expansion of slavery.
8 D 3. lists how technological developments impacted different parts of
American society between 1801 and 1860 (i. e., interchangeable parts,
inventions, cotton gin, railroads, steamboats).
4. describes the experiences of immigrants and how communities changed
due to immigration (e. g., Irish, German).
5. explains differences over policies and political philosophies which
gave rise to political parties (e. g., Alien and Sedition Act,
Federalism, foreign policy).
8 D 6. defines and gives examples of Jacksonian Democracy (i. e.,
expansion of suffrage, appeal to the common man, justification of
spoils system, opposition to elitism, opposition to Bank of the U. S.).
° 7. explains the issues of nationalism and sectionalism (e. g., Bank
of the U. S., expansion of slavery).
° 8. analyzes causes and long-term results of the War of 1812 and the
Mexican War.
9. explains the impact on American society of religious, social, and
philosophical reform movements of the early 19th century (e. g.,
abolitionism, transcendentalism, woman's suffrage).
Benchmark 2: The student uses a working knowledge and understanding of
individuals, groups, ideas,developments, and turning points in the
Civil War through the Industrial era of American history (1850-1900).
Indicators: The student:
8 D 1. retraces events that led to sectionalism and eventually
secession prior to the Civil War (i. e., Compromise of 1820, Compromise
of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Dred Scott v. Sanford).
8 D 2. explains the circumstances that shaped the Civil War and its
outcome (i. e., economic, technological, human resources of the North
and the South).
3. describes the contributions of individuals and groups in the Civil
War.
8 D 4. compares and contrasts different plans for Reconstruction (i.
e., plans advocated by President Lincoln, congressional leaders,
President Johnson).
5. describes the impeachment and trial as it applied to President
Johnson.
° 6. describes changes in different regions during Reconstruction (e.
g., economic, political, social structure).
11 D 7. describes changes in political and economic positions of
African Americans in the North and South, including challenges to
freedmen (i. e., Black Codes, sharecropping, Jim Crow, Amendments 13,
14, and 15, Plessy v. Ferguson).
8. explains how the rise of big business, heavy industry, and
mechanized farming trans-formed American society.
9. explains the concept of the "American Dream" from different
perspectives and the influences of new inventions and advances in
transportation.
° 10. summarizes from different perspectives the influences of limited
competition, business organizations, and the leadership of
industrialists on business and industry in the 19th century.
11. interprets data from written and non-written sources to describe
the experiences of immigrants of the late 19th century and how cultural
groups affected American society.
11 D 12. uses data from written and non-written sources to explain the
rise of the American labor movement and relevant political, social, and
economic issues.
13. describes Federal American Indian policy after the Civil War.
11 D 14. describes the attitudes and actions of government officials,
the Army, missionaries, settlers, and the general public toward
American Indians.
11 D 15. explains American Indians' responses to increased white
settlement, mining activities, and railroad construction.
16. explains geographic, economic and social factors that influenced an
expansionist U. S. foreign policy in the late 19th century.
17. lists arguments used to justify expansion and those used to oppose
expansion.
18. describes the causes and consequences of the Spanish-American War.
Benchmark 3: The student engages in historical thinking skills.
Indicators:
The student:
8 D 1. examines historical materials relating to United States history
during the 1800s to analyze change over time and make logical
inferences concerning cause and effect.
° 2. uses basic research skills to conduct an investigation of a
historical event.
° 3. examines historical documents, artifacts, and other materials, and
analyzes them in terms of credibility, as well as the purpose,
perspective, and point of view for which they were constructed.
° 4. compares different historians' description of the same event in
United States history during the 1800s in order to examine how the
choice of questions and the use of sources may affect their
conclusions.