🌎 7th grade Social Studies: how to help at home

What each unit covers

1. ⏳Eras of Texas History

   The eras of Texas history as the TEKS name them, from Natural Texas and its People to Contemporary Texas, the key dates (1519, 1718, 1821, 1836, 1845, 1861, 1876, 1901), and history skills: primary and secondary sources, bias, credibility and citing sources.

2. 🏞️Natural Texas & Contact

   The Gulf, Plains, Puebloan and Southeastern cultures of Texas before European colonization, and the Age of Contact: Álvarez de Pineda, Cabeza de Vaca, the search for gold and the conflicting claims of France and Spain. American Indian nations are described as many distinct peoples; those living today are in the present tense.

3. ⛪Spanish Colonial Texas

   Missions, presidios, towns and ranches, Massanet, Margil de Jesús and Francisco Hidalgo, the founding of San Antonio, Spanish, Mexican and Anglo purposes for settlement, and Spanish influence on Texas culture. Told plainly: the missions harmed many American Indian people through disease, forced labor and the loss of land and culture.

4. 🦅Mexican National Texas

   Mexico's independence and its impact on Texas (Hidalgo, Gutiérrez de Lara, the Battle of Medina, the Constitution of 1824, Coahuila y Tejas, the colonization law of 1825 and slavery), the empresarios, and the chain of events toward revolution: the Fredonian Rebellion, the Mier y Terán Report, the Law of April 6, 1830, the Turtle Bayou Resolutions and Austin's arrest.

5. 🔔The Texas Revolution

   The people and events of the Texas Revolution: Gonzales, the siege of the Alamo and Travis's letter, the diverse defenders, the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos, Goliad, the Runaway Scrape and San Jacinto, with Childress, de Zavala, Fannin, Houston, Santa Anna, Seguín and Travis, and different points of view.

6. ⭐Republic & Early Statehood

   The Republic under Houston, Lamar and Jones (the Texas Navy and Rangers, Jack Coffee Hays, Chief Bowles, William Goyens, Mary Maverick, José Antonio Navarro, the Córdova Rebellion, the Council House Fight, the Santa Fe Expedition, slavery), the causes of annexation, and early statehood: the U.S.-Mexican War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, slavery and the Compromise of 1850.

7. 🕊️Civil War & Reconstruction

   The central role of slavery in Texas's secession, the battles of Galveston, Sabine Pass and Palmito Ranch, Juneteenth, and the political, economic and social effects of the war and Reconstruction, through the Constitution of 1876. Told factually and neutrally.

8. 🐂Cotton, Cattle & Railroads

   The expansion of the frontier and its effects on American Indians, the Buffalo Soldiers and Quanah Parker, the cattle industry from its Spanish beginnings, the railroads and James Hogg, and how farming changed West Texas.

9. 🛢️Oil & the Modern Economy

   How oil industrialized Texas, boom-and-bust cycles, the Depression and World War II, urbanization and changing jobs, national and world markets, supply, demand, profit and competition, and the aerospace, medical and computer industries.

10. ⚖️Reform & Civil Rights

    Populism, progressivism, women's suffrage, labor reform and the late-20th-century conservative movement; civil rights and equal rights movements and leaders (LULAC, Hector P. Garcia, James L. Farmer Jr., Lulu Belle Madison White, Oveta Culp Hobby, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jane McCallum) and court cases such as Smith v. Allwright, Sweatt v. Painter and Hernández v. Texas; Texas leaders such as Barbara Jordan, Henry B. González and Sam Rayburn; parties, interest groups and a free press.

11. 🗺️Texas Places & People

    The four regions and key places of Texas, how geography shaped events (the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, the Dust Bowl, limited water, wind energy), how Texans changed the environment, immigrant groups and where they settled, and population growth, age distribution and its effects.

12. 🏛️Texas Constitution & Government

    The principles of the Texas Constitution compared with the US Constitution, the legislature, plural executive and courts, county, city and special-district government, state and local revenue, and citizens' rights and responsibilities, including voting, due process and caucuses.

13. 🔬Culture, Science & Technology

    Diversity within unity in Texas celebrations and heritage, Texas artists and writers such as Scott Joplin, Elisabet Ney and J. Frank Dobie, and Texas leaders in science and technology (DeBakey, Cooley, Cunningham, Brooks, Dell, Hughes) and how innovation changed farming, energy, medicine and aerospace.