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7th grade · Social Studies · Unit 2 of 11

Where Civilizations Grew

Rivers, mountains and seas

What your child practices

How geography shaped Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley and Shang China along their rivers, plus Greece, Rome and the Maya. Includes a reading passage about the Nile flood.

Alaska content standards learning standard: SS.7.1.16.2; SS.7.2.19.2 · how geography, climate and resources shaped the first civilizations

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Early civilizations grew along rivers: water, rich soil from floods and easy travel.
  2. Deserts, mountains and seas could protect a land from invaders or link it to trade.
  3. Ask: what did the land give people, and what problem did they have to solve?

Example: Egypt had desert on both sides of the Nile. How did the desert help? Deserts are hard to cross. Armies would struggle to reach Egypt. So the desert protected Egypt from invaders. Answer: It made it hard for invaders to reach Egypt

Where Civilizations Grew in Alaska

In the Alaska content standards, this is unit 2 of 11 in 7th grade Social Studies, after First Farmers and before World Beliefs.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alaska Department of Education and Early Development

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    According to the passage, where did the water for the Nile's yearly flood come from?

    The Gift of the Nile

    Egypt gets very little rain, yet thousands of years ago it fed a large population. The reason was the Nile River. The Greek historian Herodotus called Egypt 'the gift of the Nile.'

    Every summer, heavy rains fell far to the south in the highlands of Ethiopia. The water flowed north, and the Nile rose until it spilled over its banks. When the flood went down in autumn, it left a layer of dark, rich silt on the fields. Egyptians called their land Kemet, 'the black land,' after this soil, and the desert beyond it Deshret, 'the red land.'

    Farmers planted wheat and barley in the damp silt and harvested them in spring. Because the flood came at about the same time each year, Egyptians kept a calendar of 365 days. Officials measured the river's height with stone gauges called nilometers to predict the harvest and decide how much tax to collect.

    • Melting snow from Greece
    • Heavy summer rain in the highlands of Ethiopia
    • Seawater pushed in from the Mediterranean
    • Rain falling on Egypt every day

  2. Question 2

    Which body of water made trade and travel easy for the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans?

    ⛵
    • the Pacific Ocean
    • the Caspian Sea
    • the Arctic Ocean
    • the Mediterranean Sea

  3. Question 3

    Why did Ancient Greece develop as many separate city-states instead of one kingdom?

    ⛰️
    • A pharaoh ruled all of Greece
    • The land was completely flat
    • Mountains and seas divided the land into small regions
    • The Greeks had only one big river valley

  4. Question 4

    Why did many of the earliest civilizations grow up along rivers?

    🏞️
    • Mountains were too crowded
    • Rivers gave water for crops, fertile soil, and routes for travel and trade
    • Rivers kept the weather cold all year
    • There were no animals near rivers

  5. Question 5

    Why is the Huang He called the Yellow River?

    • It carries huge amounts of yellow-brown silt
    • The Sun reflects off it at sunset
    • Its banks are covered in yellow flowers
    • It was painted for festivals

  6. Question 6

    Where did the Maya civilization develop?

    🌽
    • In Mesoamerica: southern Mexico and parts of Central America
    • In the Fertile Crescent
    • In the Andes mountains of South America
    • In the Nile Valley

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