Understand the changing nature of society.

Understand how personality and socialization impact the individual.

Understand the influences on individual and group behavior and group decision making.

Understand the process of how humans develop, learn, adapt to the environment, and internalize their culture.

Understand current social issues to determine how the individual is able to formulate opinions and respond to those issues.

Understand how to evaluate social research and information.

Understand the role of scarcity and economic trade-offs and how economic conditions impact people’s lives.

Understand the functions of economic institutions.

Understand how governments throughout the world influence economic behavior.

Understand factors that create patterns of interdependence in the world economy.

Understand the impact of advancing technologies on the global economy.

Understand how universal economic concepts present themselves in various types of economies throughout the world.

Understand the function of common financial instruments.

Understand the use of geographic tools to locate and analyze information about people, places, and environments.

Understand how geographic and human characteristics create culture and define regions.

Understand how human factors and the distribution of resources affect the development society and the movement of populations.

Understand how physical processes and human actions modify the environment and how the environment affects humans.

Understand historical patterns, periods of time, and the relationships among these elements.

Understand how and why people create, maintain, or change systems of power, authority, and governance.

Understand the role of culture and cultural diffusion on the development and maintenance of societies.

Understand the role of individuals and groups within a society as promoters of change or the status quo.

Understand the effect of economic needs and wants on individual and group decisions.

Understand the effects of geographic factors on historical events.

Understand the role of innovation on the development and interaction of societies.

Understand cause and effect relationships and other historical thinking skills in order to interpret events and issues.

Understand the rights and responsibilities of each citizen and demonstrate the value of lifelong civic action.

Understand how the government established by the Constitution embodies the principles of democracy.

Understand the purpose and function of each of the three branches of government established by the Constitution.

Understand the similarities and differences among the complex levels of local, state, and national government.

Understand strategies for effective political action that impacts local, state, and national governance.

Understand how laws are established at the local, state, and national levels.

Understand how various political systems throughout the world define the rights and responsibilities of the individual.

Understand the role of the United States in current world affairs.

Understand and apply knowledge of:

• interdependency of organisms, changes in environmental conditions, and survival of individuals and species.
• the cycling of matter and energy in ecosystems.

Understand and apply knowledge of:

• elements, compounds, mixtures, and solutions based on the nature of their physical and chemical properties.
• physical and chemical changes and their relationship to the conservation of matter and energy.