All Social Studies Units

Explore a menu of Social Studies unit plans from PreK–Grade 8, featuring engaging, standards-aligned lessons that build historical and civic understanding.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 13 (Grade 7 Social Studies): The Rise of Japan and Feudal Culture

Compare Japan’s geography, feudal government, and samurai code to explain how landforms, climate, and power shaped society and culture in medieval Japan.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 12 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Medieval China and Technology

Analyze how Song and Ming innovations in printing, navigation, and paper money transformed society, governance, and trade across East Asia.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 11 (Grade 7 Social Studies): The Mongol Empire—Bridge of East and West

Evaluate how the Mongols expanded trade, improved security, and spread culture across Afro-Eurasia while weighing benefits and costs from multiple perspectives.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 10 (Grade 7 Social Studies): The Silk Road and Beyond

Trace goods, people, and ideas across Silk Road and Indian Ocean networks to explain diffusion and interdependence using maps and sources.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 9 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Midyear Project—Empires and Exchange Atlas

Create thematic maps and evidence-based mini-essays to show how faith, geography, and power shaped Afro-Eurasian empires.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 8 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Crossroads of Cultures—Trade and Technology

Investigate how innovations, science, and major trade routes connected Europe, Africa, and Asia, driving the diffusion of goods, ideas, and technologies across the Silk Road, Indian Ocean, and trans-Saharan networks.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 7 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Religion and Authority Across Continents

Compare how Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Confucianism shaped governance, law, ethics, and legitimacy—highlighting how belief systems guided rulers’ power and people’s rights across regions and eras.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 6 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Medieval Europe—Feudal Life and Power

Describe feudal hierarchies—lords, vassals, serfs, and manors—and explain how land-for-loyalty bonds and the Church’s legal and cultural power shaped medieval European society.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 5 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Governance in the Islamic World

Compare how Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid caliphates used religious law, courts, and bureaucracy to claim authority and pursue justice, rule of law, and civic equality across diverse communities.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 4 (Grade 7 Social Studies): The Rise and Spread of Islam

Analyze Islam’s origins, core beliefs, and expansion through trade, diplomacy, and conquest, highlighting cities of learning and exchange networks across Afro-Eurasia.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 3 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Empires and Kingdoms of Africa

Explore how Ghana, Mali, and Songhai grew as powerful trade, learning, and cultural centers—shaped by gold–salt routes, the Niger River, and the spread of Islam across West Africa.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 2 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Geography Shapes Culture

Explain how landforms, rivers, and climate shaped medieval settlement, farming, and trade—and how societies adapted or modified environments to support cultural growth.

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Grade 7 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 1 (Grade 7 Social Studies): Mapping the Medieval World

Use latitude/longitude and thematic maps to locate and compare major world regions in 1000 CE, revealing how trade routes, environments, and cultural networks shaped global connections.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 36 (Grade 8 Social Studies): Cumulative Synthesis & Exhibition

Show what you know through exhibits, debates, and timelines that connect freedom, conflict, and progress across U.S. history—using evidence, maps, and civic reasoning to explain change and propose informed action.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 35 (Grade 8 Social Studies): Legacy of Reconstruction and Civic Struggle

Reconstruction reshaped race, citizenship, and justice—expanding rights through the 13th–15th Amendments while Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, courts, and civic resistance contested equality.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 34 (Grade 8 Social Studies): Economic Recovery and Sharecropping

Investigate how the postwar South rebuilt through sharecropping, tenant farming, and the crop-lien credit system—and how land use, soil, and market access shaped persistent debt and regional specialization.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 33 (Grade 8 Social Studies): Rights and the Reconstruction Amendments

Analyze the 13th–15th Amendments—their promises of freedom, citizenship, and voting rights—and how courts, states, and communities expanded or restricted those rights.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 32 (Grade 8 Social Studies): Reconstruction Plans and Politics

Compare Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction—their goals, powers, and outcomes—and analyze how checks & balances, federalism, and citizen participation shaped post-Civil War change.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 31 (Grade 8 Social Studies): The War’s End and Immediate Aftermath

Trace how surrender terms, Lincoln’s assassination, and post-war devastation shaped spring–summer 1865—impacting communities, migration, and the first steps toward Reconstruction.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 30 (Grade 8 Social Studies): Turning Points and the Emancipation Proclamation

Evaluate how leadership choices and the Emancipation Proclamation reshaped the Civil War—redefining war aims, influencing major campaigns, and shifting constitutional, political, and diplomatic outcomes.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 29 (Grade 8 Social Studies): Life During the Civil War

Explore how soldiers, civilians, and enslaved people experienced the Civil War, highlighting civic action, scarcity, and economic trade-offs that shaped daily life and choices.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 28 (Grade 8 Social Studies): The Civil War Begins

Analyze how secession, early battles, and geographic and resource differences shaped Union and Confederate strategies—revealing why terrain, rivers, rail, and industry influenced early Civil War outcomes.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 27 (Grade 8 Social Studies): Midyear Synthesis—Expansion to Division Timeline Project

Connect geography, economic change, and political conflict in a visual timeline showing how territorial growth, infrastructure, and market shifts drove the United States from expansion toward sectional division and war.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 26 (Grade 8 Social Studies): The Road to War

Trace how key events from 1850–1860—from Fugitive Slave Act to John Brown’s raid and Lincoln’s election—escalated sectional tensions, reshaped politics, and drove the nation toward war.

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Grade 8 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 25 (Grade 8 Social Studies): Sectionalism and Compromise

Analyze how slavery and politics split the U.S., and why the Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, and Kansas–Nebraska Act delayed yet deepened sectional conflict.