Grade 8 Social Studies
6 units matched to the BC Curriculum.
Big Ideas
- Contacts and conflicts between peoples stimulated significant cultural, social, and political change.
- Human and environmental factors shape changes in population and living standards.
- Exploration, expansion, and colonization had varying consequences for different groups.
- Changing ideas about the world created tension between people wanting to adopt new ideas and those wanting to preserve established traditions.
Units
Unit 1
Medieval Europe
How medieval Europe was organized (kings, nobles, knights and peasants), the role of the Church and guilds, the Magna Carta, the Black Death, and how change came to the feudal system.
Learning standard: Social, economic and political structures of medieval Europe: feudalism, the Church, towns and the Black Death
Unit 2
The Islamic World
The early Islamic world and its cities, scholars and discoveries (such as algebra and optics), the exchange of knowledge through trade and translation, and the Ottoman Empire.
Learning standard: The rise of Islam and the Islamic world: learning, trade, cultural exchange and the Ottoman Empire
Unit 3
Trade & Empires
Trade routes across Asia and Africa, the wealth of Mali and Timbuktu, the Mongol Empire, Zheng He's voyages, and how trade carried goods and ideas, and sometimes conflict.
Learning standard: Interactions among societies: Silk Road, trans-Saharan trade, Mali, Mongol Empire, Ming China and Japan
Unit 4
Renaissance & Reformation
The rebirth of art and learning in Italy, how the printing press spread ideas, the Reformation, and how questioning led to new science.
Learning standard: The Renaissance, printing press, Reformation and the beginning of the Scientific Revolution
Unit 5
Exploration & Exchange
Why Europeans sailed across oceans, what the Mexica and Inca empires were like, the Columbian Exchange of foods, animals and diseases, and the serious consequences for Indigenous peoples and for enslaved Africans.
Learning standard: European exploration and colonization, the Columbian Exchange and effects on Indigenous peoples; Mexica and Inca empires
Unit 6
People on the Move
Why people move (push and pull factors), the difference between forced and unforced migration, how towns and cities grew, how disease and new crops changed populations, and the effect of growing communities on land and resources.
Learning standard: Changes in population and living standards: forced and unforced migration, diseases and health, urbanization, and environmental impact
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