------------------------------SOCIAL STUDIES
Strand: History
Content Standard I : Students are able to identify important people and events in order to analyze significant patterns, relationships, themes, ideas, beliefs, and turning points in New Mexico, United States, and world history in order to understand the complexity of the human experience.
Benchmark I-A—New Mexico: Describe how contemporary and historical people and events have influenced New Mexico communities and regions.
1. Identify common attributes of people living in New Mexico today.
Benchmark I-B—United States: Understand connections among historical events, people, and symbols significant to United States history and cultures.
1. Identify the significance of United States historical events and symbols (e.g., Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, United States flag, bald eagle).
2. Identify and recognize major political and social figures in the United States.
Benchmark I-C—World: Students will identify and describe similar historical characteristics of the United States and its neighboring countries.
1. Identify and compare celebrations and events from the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
Benchmark I-D—Skills: Understand time passage and chronology.
1. Demonstrate the use of timelines in order to show events in relation to one another.
Strand: Geography
Content Standard II: Students understand how physical, natural, and cultural processes influence where people live, the ways in which people live, and how societies interact with one another and their environments.
Benchmark II-A: Understand the concept of location by using and constructing maps, globes, and other geographic tools to identify and derive information about people, places, and environments.
1. Understand maps and globes as representations of places and phenomena.
2. Identify and use the four cardinal directions to locate places in community, state, and tribal districts.
3. Create, use, and describe simple maps to identify locations within familiar places (e.g., classroom, school, community, state).
Benchmark II-B: Distinguish between natural and human characteristics of places and use this knowledge to define regions, their relationships with other regions, and patterns of change.
1. Identify and classify characteristics of places as human or natural.
2. Identify how traditional tribal and local folklore attempt to explain weather, characteristics of places, and human origins and relationships.
Benchmark II-C: Be familiar with aspects of human behavior and man-made and natural environments in order to recognize their impact on the past and present.
1. Identify examples of and uses for natural resources in the community, state, and nation.
2. Describe the human characteristics of places such as housing types and professions.
Benchmark II-D: Understand how physical processes shape the Earth’s surface patterns and biosystems.
1. Describe the Earth-Sun relationship and how it affects living conditions on Earth.
Benchmark II-E: Describe how economic, political, cultural, and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations, and their interdependence, cooperation, and conflict.
1. Identify characteristics of culture (e.g., language, customs, religion, shelter).
Benchmark II-F: Describe how natural and man-made changes affect the meaning, use, distribution, and value of resources.
1. Describe the role of resources in daily life.
2. Describe ways that humans depend upon, adapt to, and affect the physical environment.
Strand: Civics and Government
Content Standard III: Students understand the ideals, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship and understand the content and history of the founding documents of the United States with particular emphasis on the United States and New Mexico constitutions and how governments function at local, state, tribal, and national levels.
Benchmark III-A: Know the fundamental purposes, concepts, structures, and functions of local, state, tribal, and national governments.
1. Understand the purpose of rules and identify examples of rules and the consequences of breaking them.
2. Describe different groups and rules that apply to them (e.g., families, classrooms, communities).
Benchmark III-B: Identify and describe the symbols, icons, songs, traditions, and leaders of local, state, tribal, and national levels that exemplify ideals and provide continuity and a sense of community across time.
1. Identify the President of the United States and the Governor of New Mexico.
2. Describe how local, state, tribal and national leaders exemplify the ideals of the communities they represent.
Benchmark III-C: Become familiar with the basic purposes of government in New Mexico and the United States.
1. Describe different ways to determine a decision (e.g., majority rule, consensus, authoritarian [parent, teacher, principal]).
Benchmark III-D: Understand rights and responsibilities of “good citizenship” as members of a family, school and community.
1. Identify examples of honesty, courage, fairness, loyalty, patriotism, and other character traits seen in American history.
2. Explain and apply “good citizenship” traits within the school and community using the elements of fair play, good sportsmanship, the idea of treating others the way you want to be treated, and being trustworthy.
Strand: Economics
Content Standard IV: Students understand basic economic principles and use economic reasoning skills to analyze the impact of economic systems (including the market economy) on individuals, families, businesses, communities, and governments.
Benchmark IV-A: Understand that individuals, households, businesses, governments, and societies make decisions that affect the distribution of resources and that these decisions are influenced by incentives (both economic and intrinsic).
1. Understand how resources are limited and varied in meeting human needs.
2. Define and differentiate between needs and wants.
Benchmark IV-B: Understand that economic systems impact the way individuals, households, businesses, governments, and societies make decisions about goods and services.
1. Understand the concept of goods and services.
2. Understand the condition of not being able to have all of the goods and services one wants.
3. Understand the value of work.
Benchmark IV-C: Understand the patterns and results of trade and exchange among individuals, households, businesses, governments, and societies, and their interdependent qualities.
1. Define the simplest form of exchange (the barter system being the direct trading of goods and services between people).
------------------SCIENCE
Strand I: Scientific Thinking and Practice
Standard I: Understand the processes of scientific investigations and use inquiry and scientific ways of observing, experimenting, predicting, and validating to think critically.
Benchmark I: Use scientific methods to observe, collect, record, analyze, predict, interpret, and determine reasonableness of data.
1. Make observations, develop simple questions, and make comparisons of familiar situations (e.g., What does the seed look like when it starts to grow?).
2. Describe relationships between objects (e.g., above, next to, below) and predict the results of changing the relationships (e.g., When that block moves, what will happen to the one next to it?).
Benchmark II: Use scientific thinking and knowledge and communicate findings.
1. Know that simple investigations do not always turn out as planned.
Benchmark III: Use mathematical skills and vocabulary to analyze data, understand patterns and relationships, and communicate findings.
1. Use numbers and mathematical language (e.g., “addition” instead of “add to,” “subtraction” instead of “take away”) to describe phenomena.
Strand II: Content of Science
Standard I (Physical Science): Understand the structure and properties of matter, the characteristics of energy, and the interactions between matter and energy.
Benchmark I: Recognize that matter has different forms and properties.
1. Observe that the three states of matter (i.e., solids, liquids, and gases) have different properties (e.g., water can be liquid, ice, or steam).
2. Describe simple properties of matter (e.g., hardness, flexibility, transparency).
Benchmark II: Know that energy is needed to get things done and that energy has different forms.
1. Observe and describe how energy produces changes (e.g., heat melts ice, gas makes car go uphill, electricity makes TV work).
Benchmark III: Identify forces and describe the motion of objects.
1. Describe ways to make things move, what causes them to stop, and what causes a change of speed, or change of direction.
2. Observe that gravity makes things fall to the ground unless something holds them up.
Standard II (Life Science): Understand the properties, structures, and processes of living things and the interdependence of living things and their environments.
Benchmark I: Know that living things have diverse forms, structures, functions, and habitats.
1. Know that living organisms (e.g., plants, animals) have needs (e.g., water, air, food, sunlight).
2. Know that living organisms (e.g., plants, animals) inhabit various environments and have various external features to help them satisfy their needs (e.g., leaves, legs, claws).
3. Describe the differences and similarities among living organisms (e.g., plants, animals).
4. Observe that living organisms (e.g., plants, animals) have predictable but varied life cycles.
Benchmark II: Know that living things have similarities and differences and that living things change over time.
1. Identify differences between living and nonliving things.
2. Recognize the differences between mature and immature plants and animals (e.g., trees/seedlings, dogs/puppies, cats/kittens).
Benchmark III: Know the parts of the human body and their functions.
1. Describe simple body functions (e.g., breathing, eating).
2. Describe the basic food requirements for humans.
3. Describe how some parts of human bodies differ from similar parts of other animals (e.g., hands and feet/paws;ears).
Standard III (Earth and Space Science): Understand the structure of Earth, the solar system, and the universe, the interconnections among them, and the processes and interactions of Earth’s systems.
Benchmark I: Know the structure of the solar system and the objects in the universe.
1. Observe the changes that occur in the sky as day changes into night and night into day.
2. Describe the basic patterns of objects as they move through the sky : sun appears in the day, moon appears at night but can sometimes be seen during the day, sun and moon appear to move across the sky, moon appears to change shape over the course of a month.
3. Recognize that the sun, moon, and stars all appear to move slowly across the sky.
Benchmark II: Know the structure and formation of Earth and its atmosphere and the processes that shape them.
1. Know that simple tools can be used to measure weather conditions (e.g., thermometer, wind sock, hand held anemometer, rain gauge) and that measurements can be recorded from day to day and across seasons.
2. Know that there are different climates (e.g., desert, arctic, rainforest).
Strand III: Science and Society
Standard I: Understand how scientific discoveries, inventions, practices, and knowledge influence, and are influenced by, individuals and societies.
Benchmark I: Describe how science influences decisions made by individuals and societies.
1. Know that germs can be transmitted by touching, breathing, and coughing, and that washing hands helps prevent the spread of germs.
2. Describe how science has assisted in creating tools (e.g., plows, knives, telephones, cell phones, computers) to make life easier and more efficient.
3. Describe how tools and machines can be helpful, harmful, or both (e.g., bicycles, cars, scissors, stoves).
4. Know that men and women of all ethnic and social backgrounds practice science and technology.