Students in grade six expand their understanding of history by studying the people and events that ushered in the dawn of the major western and non-western ancient civilizations. Geography is of special significance in the development of the human story. Continued emphasis is placed on the everyday lives, problems and accomplishments of people, their role in developing social, economic and political structures, as well as in establishing and spreading ideas that helped transform the world forever. Students develop higher levels of critical thinking by considering why civilizations developed where and when they did, why they became dominant and why they declined. Students analyze the interactions among the various cultures, emphasizing their enduring contributions and the link, despite time, between the contemporary and ancient worlds.

6.1 Students describe what is known through archaeological studies of the early physical and cultural development of mankind from the Paleolithic Era to the agricultural revolution, in terms of:

1. the hunter-gatherer societies and their characteristics, including the development of tools and the use of fire
2. the location of human communities that populated the major regions of the world and how humans adapted to a variety of environments
3. the climatic changes and human modifications of the physical environment that gave rise to the domestication of plants and animals and the increase in the sources of clothing and shelter

6.2 Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Kush, in terms of:

1. the location and description of the river systems, and physical settings that supported permanent settlement and early civilizations
2. the development of agricultural techniques that permitted the production of economic surplus and the emergence of cities as centers of culture and power
3. the relationship between religion and the social and political order in Mesopotamia and Egypt
4. the significance of Hammurabi's Code
5. Egyptian art and architecture
6. the location and description of the role of Egyptian trade in the eastern Mediterranean and Nile valley
7. the significance of the lives of Queen Hatsheput and Ramses the Great
8. the location of the Kush civilization and its political, commercial and cultural relations with Egypt
9. the evolution of language and its written forms

6.3 Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of the Ancient Hebrews, in terms of:

1. the origins and significance of Judaism as the first monotheistic religion based on the concept of one God who sets down moral laws for humanity
2. the sources of the ethical teachings and central beliefs of Judaism (the Hebrew Bible, the Commentaries): belief in God, observance of law, practice of concepts of righteousness and justice, and importance of study; how the ideas of the Hebrew traditions are reflected in the moral and ethical traditions of Western civilization
3. how Abraham, Moses, Naomi, Ruth, David, and Yohanan ben Zaccai influenced the development of the Jewish religion
4. the location of the settlements and movements of Hebrew peoples, including the Exodus, the movement to and from Egypt, and the significance of the Exodus experience to the Jewish people and other people in history
5. how Judaism survived and developed despite the continuing dispersion of much of the Jewish population from Jerusalem and the rest of the land of Israel after the destruction of the second Temple in 70.

6.4 Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilization of Ancient Greece, in terms of:

1. the connections between geography and the development of city-states in the region of the Aegean Sea, including patterns of trade and commerce among Greek city-states and within the wider Mediterranean region
2. the transition from tyranny and oligarchy to early democratic forms of government and back to dictatorship in ancient Greece, and the significance of the invention of the idea of citizenship
3. the key differences between Athenian or direct democracy and representative democracy (e.g., draw from Pericles' Funeral Oration)
4. the significance of Greek mythology to the everyday life of people in the region and how Greek literature continues to permeate our literature and language today, drawing from Greek mythology and epics such as the Iliad and the Odyssey and from Aesop's Fables
5. the founding, expansion, and political organization of the Persian Empire
6. similarities and differences between life in Athens and Sparta, with emphasis on their roles in the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars
7. the rise of Alexander the Great in the North and the spread of Greek culture eastward and into Egypt
8. the enduring contributions of important Greek figures in the arts and sciences (e.g., biographies of Hypatia, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Thucydides)

6.5 Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of India, in terms of:

1. the location and description of the river system and physical setting that supported the rise of this civilization
2. the significance of the Aryan invasions
3. the major beliefs and practices of Brahmanism in India and how they evolved into early Hinduism
4. the social structure of the caste system
5. the life and moral teachings of Buddha and how Buddhism spread in India, Ceylon, and Central Asia
6. the growth of the Maurya empire and the political and moral achievements of the emperor Asoka
7. important aesthetic and intellectual traditions (e.g., Sanskrit literature, including the Bhagavad Gita, medicine, metallurgy, mathematics including Hindu-Arabic numerals and the zero)

6.6 Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of China, in terms of:

1. the location and description of the origins of Chinese civilization in the Huang-He Valley Shang dynasty
2. the geographical features of China that made governance and movement of ideas and goods difficult and served to isolate that country from the rest of the world
3. the life of Confucius and the fundamental teachings of Confucianism and Taoism
4. the political and cultural problems prevalent in the time of Confucius and how he sought to solve them
5. the policies and achievements of the emperor Shi Huangdi in unifying northern China under the Qin dynasty
6. the political contributions of the Han dynasty to the development of the imperial bureaucratic state and the expansion of the empire
7. the significance of the trans-Eurasian "silk roads" in the period of the Han and Roman empires and their locations
8. the diffusion of Buddhism northward to China during the Han dynasty

6.7 Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures in the development of Rome, in terms of:

1. the location and rise of the Roman Republic, including such important mythical and historical figures as Aeneas, Romulus and Remus, Cincinnatus, Julius Caesar, and Cicero
2. the character of the government of the Roman Republic and its significance (e.g., written constitution and tripartite government, checks and balances, civic duty)
3. the location of and the political and geographic reasons for the growth of Roman territories and expansion of the empire, including how the Roman empire fostered economic growth through the use of currency and trade routes
4. the influence of Julius Caesar and Augustus in Rome's transition from republic to empire
5. the migration of Jews around the Mediterranean region and the effects of their conflict with the Romans, including the Romans' restrictions on their right to live in Jerusalem
6. the origins of Christianity in the Jewish Messianic prophecies, the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as described in the New Testament, and the contribution of St. Paul the Apostle to the definition and spread of Christian beliefs (e.g., belief in the Trinity, resurrection, salvation)
7. the circumstances that led to the spread of Christianity in Europe and other Roman territories
8. the legacies of Roman art and architecture, technology and science, literature, language, and law

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