For decades, the "expanding communities" model has dominated the elementary classroom, sustained by notions that young children need to first understand their local communities before they can understand the broader world. As proponents of this approach value how it supports young learners developmentally, critics fault its narrow scope.…

A typical social studies lesson for elementary students often includes the memorization of facts and dates, but lacks the inquiry-based instruction that could promote purposeful engagement with historical sources. In this social studies learning experience, framed in the tenets of transcaring and the C3 Framework, students actively and…

Before the words are spoken, a bright light shines from the eyes of second grade teacher Mr. Aguilar. "I do not teach poetry," he says, "poetic language is everywhere. It is a kind of movement, a wind." While poetry is typically characterized by its flexible form and accessibility, for Mr. Aguilar, now in his tenth year of…

Almost eighty years ago, Lucy Sprague Mitchell, founder of Bank Street College of Education in New York City, wrote about social studies in ways that sound remarkably contemporary: "In the first place, we shall say that the curriculum should continue the laboratory methods, which means it should furnish the children with as many first-hand…

Kentucky's elementary social studies curriculum includes introductory knowledge in state and national history, providing an opportunity for teachers to include instruction on the influence of slavery on society before and after the Civil War, and sometimes on current events. For example, following the violent events in 2017 in Charlottesville,…

Despite wars, natural disasters, fears of epidemics and pandemics, and other catastrophic events that are vividly featured in media outlets, the world's population continues to rise. In fact, the world recently passed another demographic milestone: a human population of 7 billion people. The number of people on Earth has tripled since around 1930,…

This article introduces the fifty states project, a year-long study of the United States that uses crowd sourcing to bring authentic materials into the social studies classroom. The project started five years ago, when author Kelly McPherson decided that she wanted to have a care package sent from all 50 states to help students learn about the…

Teaching about the many controversial issues found in social studies is not easy. Teachers often shy away from such topics, especially in classrooms where students may be socially challenged and unaware of the vocabulary and social norms of civil discourse. This article explores how the narrative strategy Storypath can be used as a vehicle for…

Young children are naturally inquisitive, and teachers often invite them to question, challenge, and create to expand their ever growing knowledge base. This article describes an inspiration one kindergarten teacher had when she overheard two children in her class discussing their recent experiences at an airport. The students were sharing some of…

The authors describe a month-long unit on Afro-Latin@ identity in which third grade students began with a discussion of complex questions with which many historians, anthropologists, and scholars struggle to make sense. The goal of this month-long unit was to have students adopt the lens of cultural anthropologists as they explored the historical…

This lesson was inspired by the book, "10 Little Rubber Ducks" by Eric Carle, which discusses ocean pollution. The book was inspired by an incident in 1992: A shipping container tumbled into the North Pacific Ocean, broke open, and 28,800 little rubber ducks (and other plastic bath toys) were lost at sea. The ducks were manufactured in China, and…

In this article, the authors describe a recent project undertaken at the University of South Florida's (USF) Preschool for Creative Learning. To align with the inquiry approach of their laboratory school, the environment at the Preschool is designed so that children can learn through exploration and individual initiative. The administration and…

According to the authors, five years ago their school district embraced Understanding by Design as the organizing framework for curriculum. The emphasis on enduring understandings and essential questions led the sixth grade social studies teachers to reevaluate what they were teaching in their World History Curriculum. Together the authors worked…

Originally called Earth Viewer in 2004, Google Earth was the first virtual globe easily available to the ordinary user of the Internet. Google Earth, at earth.google.com, is a free, 3-dimensional computer model of Earth, but that means more than just a large collection of pretty pictures. It allows the viewer to "fly" anywhere on Earth "to view…

Children begin to learn at an early age their "place in the world." Through their natural curiosity and in using their five senses to explore nature, children begin to understand human-environment relationships: sensing how to get from point A to point B on their own, experiencing the movement of products and people, and observing how places…