Outcome Chart - British Columbia - Social Studies Grade 8

Big Ideas

Contact and conflict between peoples stimulated significant cultural, social, and political change.
Human and environmental factors shape changes in population and living standards.

Overall Expectations:

Use Social Studies inquiry processes and skills to ask questions; gather, interpret, and analyze ideas; and communicate findings and decisions
Assess the significance of people, places, events, or developments at particular times and places (significance)
Identify what the creators of accounts, narratives, maps, or texts have determined is significant (significance)
Assess the credibility of multiple sources and the adequacy of evidence used to justify conclusions (evidence)
Characterize different time periods in history, including periods of progress and decline, and identify key turning points that mark periods of change (continuity and change)
Determine which causes most influenced particular decisions, actions, or events, and assess their short-and long-term consequences (cause and consequence)
Explain different perspectives on past or present people, places, issues, or events, and compare the values, worldviews, and beliefs of human cultures and societies in different times and places (perspective)
Make ethical judgments about past events, decisions, or actions, and assess the limitations of drawing direct lessons from the past (ethical judgment)

Specific Expectations

Students are expected to know the following:

social, political, and economic systems and structures, including those of at least one indigenous civilization
scientific and technological innovation
changes in population and living standards