Updated Enduring Understandings with SAS Standards


Standard I: Analyze how individuals, groups, and institutions create and change structures of power, authority, and governance

  • People organize around common needs and interests
  • The human need for order leads to the evolution of authority and government.









  • There is a relationship between rights and responsibilities


Standard II Explore and apply geographic knowledge and skills

  • Places have both human and physical characteristics
  • Resources have limitations.
  • There is a direct relationship between people and their environments

Standard III Recognize how time, continuity, and change affect perspectives and relationships
  • Change is inevitable.
  • Decisions have consequences (in the present and to the future
  • Our world is connected in a delicate balance (equilibrium and entropy).

Standard IV Applies economic concepts
  • People have infinite wants but finite resources.

  • Unequally available resources lead to exchange.














Standard V Examines cultural practices and human interactions
  • People exist simultaneously as an individual and as a member of a group
  • People are different.
  • All people have value
  • Our identity is shaped by external and internal factors


Standard VI Standard VI Apply literacy skills and understandings of key ideas, details, structure, and integration of knowledge (Proposed Dec 1 by MS Task Force)
  • Technology changes and people need to adapt to those changes
  • People need to communicate effectively
  • Reading is an essential skill








This page is incomplete. These Enduring Understandings (7-10) will be updated during the March 11th full task force retreat.
Through their preK-12 experiences, students will, at a developmentally appropriate level, be exposed to the following themes or big ideas:

1.Culture

2.Time, continuity, change

3.People, places and environments

4.Individual development and identity

5.Individuals, groups, and Institutions

6.Power, authority and governments

7.Production, distribution, Consumption.

8.Science, Technology, and Society





9.Global Connections





10. Civil Ideals and Practices

  1. 1. Culture
    All people are different.
    All people have value.




    2. Time, continuity, change
    Change is inevitable
    Past impacts the present and the future.
    Human decisions have consequences.








    3. People, places and environments
    People are affected by where they are in the world.
    Resources have limitations.
    There is a direct relationship between people and their environments.








    4. Individual development and identity
    People exist as an individual and as a member of a group simultaneously
    Our identity is shaped by external and internal factors.
    People’s needs affect their behavior.
    Nature and nurture shape development








    5. Individuals, groups, and Institutions
    Institutions provide order and influence individuals and groups.
    There are often conflicting goals, values, and principles between institutions.
    Institutions are created to provide for changing needs.
    People organize around common needs and interests








    6. Power, authority and governments
    Governments are used to resolve conflict.
    There is a relationship between rights and responsibilities
    The human need for order leads to the evolution of authority and government.








    7. Production, distribution, Consumption.
    People have infinite wants but finite resources.
    How resources are distributed is important.
    Unequal resources lead to exchange.












    8. Science, Technology, and Society








    9. Global Connections








    10. Civil Ideals and Practices




(potential shared reading - consider a Text Rendering Protocol)