🌎 8th grade Social Studies: how to help at home

What each unit covers

1. 🏺Rome's Fall & Byzantium

   Rome's lasting contributions, why the Western Empire fell, Constantine and Constantinople, Justinian and the Byzantine Empire, and the split between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

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.

3. 🏯Empires of Asia

   China from the Tang to the Ming, the Mongol Empire, feudal Japan, the Mughal and Ottoman empires, Korea and the Khmer, and how technology and trade spread ideas.

4. 🐪African Kingdoms & Empires

   Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Great Zimbabwe, the Swahili coast, Benin and Ethiopia from about 600 to 1900, trade across the Sahara and the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic slave trade and African resistance to colonization.

5. ☀️Maya, Aztec & Inca

   How the Maya, Aztec (Mexica) and Inca arose, their cities, farming, achievements in mathematics and astronomy, and how the Aztec and Inca empires were defeated by Spain. Maya, Nahua and Quechua peoples are living communities today.

6. 🏰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.

7. ⚔️Crusades & the Black Death

   Disputes between popes, emperors and churches, the causes and effects of the Crusades and the Reconquista, and how the Black Death spread along trade routes and changed society, the economy and the Church.

8. 🎨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.

9. 🧭Exploration & Exchange

   The great voyages, the ships and tools that made them possible, mapmaking, the Columbian Exchange and the rise of colonial empires and mercantilism.

10. 🧭Encounter & the Atlantic World

    Why and how Europeans explored, the Columbian Exchange, the devastating effect on Indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Atlantic slave trade and its effects on Africa, and how new ocean routes changed older trade networks.

11. 👑Absolutism to Enlightenment

    Absolute monarchs in France, Spain and Russia, the Scientific Revolution's challenge to old authorities, and Enlightenment thinkers such as Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau and their ideas about government.

12. 🕌Ottoman & Ming Empires

    How the Ottoman Empire and Ming China rose, how Islam and Neo-Confucianism shaped their governments and societies, how each ruled people of many backgrounds, and how they saw their place in the world.

13. 🔭Science & the Enlightenment

    Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, the scientific method, the roots of the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment thinkers whose ideas about rights and government shaped the American founding.