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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.