Social Studies Department
Social Studies courses at IHSNO will help students to develop content knowledge by analyzing significant historical periods, explaining how society, the environment, the political and economic landscape, and historical events influence perspectives, values, traditions, and ideas through the use of key questions to build an understanding of content through multiple sources, and by corroborating sources to evaluate evidence by considering author, occasion, and purpose. Students learn to develop and express claims through discussions and writing which examine the impact of relationships between ideas, people, and events across time and place through evaluating primary and secondary sources to deepen their understanding and to support their own claims about the content of history by recognizing recurring themes and patterns in history, geography, economics, and civics, and by evaluating the causes and consequences of events and developments.
Course Offerings:
Course Title | World Geography | Civics | US History | IB History of the Americas | World History | IB World History |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Course Description | This course will cover the major elements of physical and cultural geography across all continents. Major areas of study include spatial geography, places and regions, physical and human systems, and environment and society. | This course covers the structure of the United States Government from its founding to the present day and explores how government affects how society functions. | This course will cover US History from the end of Reconstruction, World War I, the Roaring ‘20s, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and the Civil Rights Movement from its founding to the present day and explore how government affects how society functions in preparation for the LEAP 2025 assessment. | This is the first of two years of IB History for students at IHSNO. For students who have yet to take the U.S. History End of Course Exam, HOA serves as both the regional, Americas, the focus of IB History Higher Level (HL) but also an emphasis on U.S. History through 4 major sections of focus like the “Emergence of the Americas in Global Affairs.” | This course will cover the major historical events around the world from the Renaissance through the present day. By analyzing significant historical periods, students explain how society, the environment, the political and economic landscape, and historical events influence perspectives, values, traditions, and ideas. The seven themes we will explore throughout the course will include science, technology, and the environment, expressing identity, economic networks and exchange, uses and abuses of power, patterns of population, haves, and have-nots, and spiritual life and moral codes. | This course will cover the major historical events around the world from the Renaissance through the present day by exploring topics through research. This is structured through the following topics: Authoritarian states (Paper 2), Superpower rivalries: The Cold War (Paper 2), Move to Global War (Paper 1), Emergence of the Americas in global affairs; WW2 and the Americas; Cold War and the Americas (Paper 3), Historical Investigation (Internal Assessment). |
Course Progression | 9th Grade | 10th Grade | 11th Grade | 11th Grade | 12th Grade | 12th Grade |