The 99 competencies set for Grade 5 World Studies, and every one has lessons behind it.
Geography, Resources, Migration, and Cultural Diffusion
25 competencies
Explain how conquest, taxation, tribute, and trade could move resources toward states and imperial centers.
Explain how physical geography can influence the location, expansion, economy, defense, communication, and political organization of a civilization.
Identify farmland, freshwater, timber, stone, metals, pasture, fisheries, navigable water, ports, and transport routes as geographically distributed resources.
Explain that access to a resource depends on location, technology, labor, political control, and exchange.
Distinguish a locally available resource from one obtained through trade, tribute, taxation, migration, or conquest.
Compare the physical geography of the Mediterranean basin, Iranian Plateau, Indian subcontinent, East Asia, and Mesoamerica.
Explain how seas, rivers, mountain passes, deserts, monsoon patterns, tropical forests, and highlands influenced classical settlement and movement.
Explain why similar physical environments may support different political and cultural developments.
Use physical, resource, settlement, and route maps together to answer a historical question.
Evaluate a geographic explanation and identify where it becomes overly deterministic.
Explain how political control of routes or resource areas can change access without introducing formal geopolitics.
Compare the geographic advantages, limits, and risks faced by two classical civilizations.
Distinguish direct contact, indirect contact, parallel development, and uncertain connection.
Distinguish evidence of influence from unsupported claims of direct borrowing.
Define migration as the movement of people from one place to another for temporary, seasonal, long-term, or permanent settlement.
Identify environmental, economic, political, family, religious, military, and safety-related reasons for migration in historical examples.
Distinguish voluntary migration, compelled movement, forced relocation, military settlement, and enslavement at an introductory level.
Explain that migrants carry languages, skills, beliefs, foods, technologies, memories, and social practices.
Define cultural diffusion as the spread of cultural features among people and places.
Identify migration, trade, intermarriage, education, religious activity, administration, conquest, and imitation as possible processes of cultural diffusion.
Explain that borrowed cultural features may be adapted rather than copied unchanged.
Distinguish cultural diffusion from complete cultural replacement.
Explain that cultural exchange may occur under unequal political or military conditions.
Reject the idea that cultures exist in a permanently pure or isolated form.
Construct a guided historical explanation containing a claim, evidence, source evaluation, and uncertainty.
Government Types and the Rule of Law
16 competencies
Define a government type as a descriptive category based on who holds authority and how public decisions are made.
Describe monarchy as government headed by a monarch whose authority may be hereditary, selected, limited, shared, or extensive.
Describe a republic as a political system in which public offices are not permanently inherited by a ruling monarch.
Describe democracy as a system in which eligible members of a political community participate directly or through selected representatives.
Describe oligarchy as rule concentrated among a relatively small group.
Describe aristocracy as rule or privileged political influence associated with a hereditary or socially elevated group.
Describe imperial government as rule over multiple territories or peoples from a central authority.
Explain that one government may combine monarchical, democratic, oligarchic, republican, aristocratic, and imperial features.
Compare the official structure of a government with the distribution of actual political power.
Define the rule of law as the principle that publicly known rules govern officials and ordinary people.
Distinguish the rule of law from rule based mainly on a leader’s changing personal command.
Identify written law, customary law, courts, magistrates, juries or councils, evidence, penalties, and appeals as possible features of legal systems.
Explain that legal rights and political participation differed by citizenship, gender, class, enslavement, age, and place in classical societies.
Compare government types without ranking one as universally best.
Use historical examples to explain both the stated purpose and practical limits of a government institution.
Explain that an empire contains different peoples and regions rather than one uniform culture.
How Classical Economies Worked
18 competencies
Explain an economy as a system through which people produce, distribute, exchange, and consume goods and services.
Identify households, farms, workshops, markets, temples, estates, cities, governments, armies, and merchants as participants in classical economies.
Explain why agriculture supported most classical populations and state institutions.
Describe specialization in farming, craft production, administration, construction, military service, trade, transport, and religious work.
Explain how taxation in goods, labor, or money supported governments, armies, storage, ceremonies, and public works.
Distinguish barter, commodity money, weighed metal, and coinage.
Explain how money can simplify exchange, store value, communicate prices, and support taxation while depending on shared trust or authority.
Identify marketplaces, ports, roads, rivers, inns, storehouses, weights, measures, contracts, coins, and credit only at an introductory level as supports for trade.
Trace an ancient good from production through transport, market, taxation, and consumption.
Compare local, regional, and imperial exchange without yet constructing full transregional trade-network systems.
Describe household labor, hired labor, tenant labor, state labor, military labor, debt labor, and enslavement as different labor arrangements.
Explain that ancient slavery involved treating people as property or coerced laborers and appeared in varied forms across societies.
Distinguish ancient slavery from the later racialized transatlantic system, which is studied in Grade 7.
Explain how conquest, taxation, tribute, and trade could move resources toward states and imperial centers.
Compare economic benefits, burdens, dependencies, and risks for different participants in an ancient economy.
Trace the movement of a good, crop, animal, technology, coin, artistic form, script, or belief across several places.
Identify water supply, food production, public health, warfare, succession, route security, and governing distance as shared challenges.
Use written, archaeological, artistic, architectural, numismatic, and environmental evidence together.
Belief Systems of the Ancient and Classical World
15 competencies
Describe a belief system as a connected set of ideas, practices, stories, institutions, and community traditions.
Explain that a belief tradition may develop over a long period and may not have one founder, one text, or one uniform practice.
Identify the broad region and historical context in which selected major belief systems arose.
Describe central ideas of Hindu traditions at a basic level, including dharma, karma, rebirth, and liberation, while recognizing internal diversity.
Describe central Jain ideas at a basic level, including nonviolence, self-discipline, karma, and liberation.
Describe central Buddhist ideas at a basic level, including suffering, its causes, the possibility of release, and disciplined practice.
Describe Judaism at a basic level through covenant, monotheism, law, worship, community, and historical memory.
Describe early Christianity at a basic level through teachings associated with Jesus, belief in the Christ, community, scripture, worship, and salvation.
Describe Zoroastrianism at a basic level through Ahura Mazda, truth and falsehood, moral choice, worship, and final renewal.
Describe Confucian traditions at a basic level through ethical cultivation, family and social relationships, learning, ritual conduct, and responsible government.
Describe Daoist traditions at a basic level through the Dao, naturalness, balance, simplicity, and varied philosophical and religious practices.
Compare belief systems descriptively without ranking truth, morality, sophistication, or historical worth.
Distinguish a tradition’s core introductory concepts from the full diversity of its schools and practices.
Distinguish learning about a belief system from participating in it devotionally.
Explain that surviving religious texts and elite institutions do not necessarily describe every follower’s practice.
Persia, Greece, and the Hellenistic World
25 competencies
Describe democracy as a system in which eligible members of a political community participate directly or through selected representatives.
Describe oligarchy as rule concentrated among a relatively small group.
Describe imperial government as rule over multiple territories or peoples from a central authority.
Explain that one government may combine monarchical, democratic, oligarchic, republican, aristocratic, and imperial features.
Compare the official structure of a government with the distribution of actual political power.
Explain that legal rights and political participation differed by citizenship, gender, class, enslavement, age, and place in classical societies.
Compare government types without ranking one as universally best.
Explain that ancient slavery involved treating people as property or coerced laborers and appeared in varied forms across societies.
Explain how states attempted to maintain roads, ports, messengers, taxation, armies, and local administration across large territories.
Explain how expansion could create opportunities for exchange while also producing conquest, tribute, displacement, forced labor, or resistance.
Explain that an empire contains different peoples and regions rather than one uniform culture.
Distinguish evidence of influence from unsupported claims of direct borrowing.
Define cultural diffusion as the spread of cultural features among people and places.
Explain that borrowed cultural features may be adapted rather than copied unchanged.
Distinguish cultural diffusion from complete cultural replacement.
Explain that cultural exchange may occur under unequal political or military conditions.
Identify who created a historical source.
Identify the intended or likely audience of a source.
Identify a source’s likely purpose, including administration, law, commemoration, persuasion, ritual, instruction, entertainment, or private communication.
Explain how purpose may shape what a source includes, emphasizes, or omits.
Distinguish an official claim from independent evidence about what occurred.
Compare two accounts of the same event, institution, or person.
Identify agreement, disagreement, difference in emphasis, and omission among accounts.
Compare continuity and change across a defined classical period.
Avoid treating a literary, religious, commemorative, or political source as a neutral transcript of events.
Rome — Republic, Empire, and Mediterranean Civilization
22 competencies
Describe a republic as a political system in which public offices are not permanently inherited by a ruling monarch.
Describe imperial government as rule over multiple territories or peoples from a central authority.
Explain that one government may combine monarchical, democratic, oligarchic, republican, aristocratic, and imperial features.
Compare the official structure of a government with the distribution of actual political power.
Define the rule of law as the principle that publicly known rules govern officials and ordinary people.
Explain that legal rights and political participation differed by citizenship, gender, class, enslavement, age, and place in classical societies.
Trace an ancient good from production through transport, market, taxation, and consumption.
Explain that ancient slavery involved treating people as property or coerced laborers and appeared in varied forms across societies.
Explain how conquest, taxation, tribute, and trade could move resources toward states and imperial centers.
Compare economic benefits, burdens, dependencies, and risks for different participants in an ancient economy.
Explain how states attempted to maintain roads, ports, messengers, taxation, armies, and local administration across large territories.
Explain how expansion could create opportunities for exchange while also producing conquest, tribute, displacement, forced labor, or resistance.
Explain that an empire contains different peoples and regions rather than one uniform culture.
Explain how purpose may shape what a source includes, emphasizes, or omits.
Compare two accounts of the same event, institution, or person.
Explain continuity as something that remains or develops gradually across a period.
Explain change as a significant alteration in institutions, practices, population, territory, technology, belief, or daily life.
Distinguish short-term events from longer-term historical developments.
Compare continuity and change across a defined classical period.
Construct a guided historical explanation containing a claim, evidence, source evaluation, and uncertainty.
Describe early Christianity at a basic level through teachings associated with Jesus, belief in the Christ, community, scripture, worship, and salvation.
Explain that surviving religious texts and elite institutions do not necessarily describe every follower’s practice.
Maurya and Gupta India
23 competencies
Describe imperial government as rule over multiple territories or peoples from a central authority.
Compare the official structure of a government with the distribution of actual political power.
Explain an economy as a system through which people produce, distribute, exchange, and consume goods and services.
Describe specialization in farming, craft production, administration, construction, military service, trade, transport, and religious work.
Identify marketplaces, ports, roads, rivers, inns, storehouses, weights, measures, contracts, coins, and credit only at an introductory level as supports for trade.
Explain how physical geography can influence the location, expansion, economy, defense, communication, and political organization of a civilization.
Trace the movement of a good, crop, animal, technology, coin, artistic form, script, or belief across several places.
Explain how states attempted to maintain roads, ports, messengers, taxation, armies, and local administration across large territories.
Identify who created a historical source.
Identify the intended or likely audience of a source.
Identify a source’s likely purpose, including administration, law, commemoration, persuasion, ritual, instruction, entertainment, or private communication.
Explain how purpose may shape what a source includes, emphasizes, or omits.
Distinguish an official claim from independent evidence about what occurred.
Explain continuity as something that remains or develops gradually across a period.
Explain change as a significant alteration in institutions, practices, population, territory, technology, belief, or daily life.
Compare continuity and change across a defined classical period.
Evaluate a source at a basic level by considering creator, date, audience, purpose, content, and limitation.
Recognize that later sources may preserve valuable information while also reflecting later concerns.
Avoid treating a literary, religious, commemorative, or political source as a neutral transcript of events.
Describe central ideas of Hindu traditions at a basic level, including dharma, karma, rebirth, and liberation, while recognizing internal diversity.
Describe central Jain ideas at a basic level, including nonviolence, self-discipline, karma, and liberation.
Describe central Buddhist ideas at a basic level, including suffering, its causes, the possibility of release, and disciplined practice.
Compare belief systems descriptively without ranking truth, morality, sophistication, or historical worth.
Qin Foundations and Han China
22 competencies
Describe imperial government as rule over multiple territories or peoples from a central authority.
Compare the official structure of a government with the distribution of actual political power.
Distinguish the rule of law from rule based mainly on a leader’s changing personal command.
Use historical examples to explain both the stated purpose and practical limits of a government institution.
Explain an economy as a system through which people produce, distribute, exchange, and consume goods and services.
Explain why agriculture supported most classical populations and state institutions.
Explain how taxation in goods, labor, or money supported governments, armies, storage, ceremonies, and public works.
Trace an ancient good from production through transport, market, taxation, and consumption.
Compare local, regional, and imperial exchange without yet constructing full transregional trade-network systems.
Describe household labor, hired labor, tenant labor, state labor, military labor, debt labor, and enslavement as different labor arrangements.
Trace the movement of a good, crop, animal, technology, coin, artistic form, script, or belief across several places.
Explain how purpose may shape what a source includes, emphasizes, or omits.
Distinguish an official claim from independent evidence about what occurred.
Explain continuity as something that remains or develops gradually across a period.
Explain change as a significant alteration in institutions, practices, population, territory, technology, belief, or daily life.
Distinguish short-term events from longer-term historical developments.
Compare continuity and change across a defined classical period.
Evaluate a source at a basic level by considering creator, date, audience, purpose, content, and limitation.
Avoid treating a literary, religious, commemorative, or political source as a neutral transcript of events.
Describe Confucian traditions at a basic level through ethical cultivation, family and social relationships, learning, ritual conduct, and responsible government.
Describe Daoist traditions at a basic level through the Dao, naturalness, balance, simplicity, and varied philosophical and religious practices.
Explain that surviving religious texts and elite institutions do not necessarily describe every follower’s practice.
The Maya — Cities, Calendars, Kings, and Knowledge
27 competencies
Describe monarchy as government headed by a monarch whose authority may be hereditary, selected, limited, shared, or extensive.
Describe imperial government as rule over multiple territories or peoples from a central authority.
Compare the official structure of a government with the distribution of actual political power.
Trace an ancient good from production through transport, market, taxation, and consumption.
Compare local, regional, and imperial exchange without yet constructing full transregional trade-network systems.
Explain how physical geography can influence the location, expansion, economy, defense, communication, and political organization of a civilization.
Identify farmland, freshwater, timber, stone, metals, pasture, fisheries, navigable water, ports, and transport routes as geographically distributed resources.
Explain how seas, rivers, mountain passes, deserts, monsoon patterns, tropical forests, and highlands influenced classical settlement and movement.
Explain why similar physical environments may support different political and cultural developments.
Create a civilization geography profile connecting location, resources, settlement, economy, and communication.
Evaluate a geographic explanation and identify where it becomes overly deterministic.
Identify water supply, food production, public health, warfare, succession, route security, and governing distance as shared challenges.
Identify who created a historical source.
Identify when and where a historical source was created.
Identify the intended or likely audience of a source.
Identify a source’s likely purpose, including administration, law, commemoration, persuasion, ritual, instruction, entertainment, or private communication.
Explain how purpose may shape what a source includes, emphasizes, or omits.
Distinguish an official claim from independent evidence about what occurred.
Explain continuity as something that remains or develops gradually across a period.
Explain change as a significant alteration in institutions, practices, population, territory, technology, belief, or daily life.
Distinguish short-term events from longer-term historical developments.
Use written, archaeological, artistic, architectural, numismatic, and environmental evidence together.
Construct a guided historical explanation containing a claim, evidence, source evaluation, and uncertainty.
Avoid treating a literary, religious, commemorative, or political source as a neutral transcript of events.
Describe classical Maya religion through sacred time, multiple deities, ancestors, divine kingship, offerings, and ritual.
Distinguish a tradition’s core introductory concepts from the full diversity of its schools and practices.
Explain that surviving religious texts and elite institutions do not necessarily describe every follower’s practice.
Comparing the Classical World — Sources, Change, and Connection
33 competencies
Explain that one government may combine monarchical, democratic, oligarchic, republican, aristocratic, and imperial features.
Compare the official structure of a government with the distribution of actual political power.
Explain that legal rights and political participation differed by citizenship, gender, class, enslavement, age, and place in classical societies.
Compare government types without ranking one as universally best.
Compare economic benefits, burdens, dependencies, and risks for different participants in an ancient economy.
Explain that classical societies were connected through migration, diplomacy, warfare, trade, religious activity, and exchange of knowledge.
Trace the movement of a good, crop, animal, technology, coin, artistic form, script, or belief across several places.
Distinguish direct contact, indirect contact, parallel development, and uncertain connection.
Identify water supply, food production, public health, warfare, succession, route security, and governing distance as shared challenges.
Compare how two classical societies responded differently to a shared challenge.
Create a connection map showing routes, regions, exchanged goods, ideas, and political control.
Distinguish evidence of influence from unsupported claims of direct borrowing.
Evaluate a proposed explanation of cultural or technological spread using available evidence and uncertainty.
Explain that migrants carry languages, skills, beliefs, foods, technologies, memories, and social practices.
Define cultural diffusion as the spread of cultural features among people and places.
Explain that borrowed cultural features may be adapted rather than copied unchanged.
Identify continuity and change within a community after migration or contact.
Explain that cultural exchange may occur under unequal political or military conditions.
Compare two examples of cultural spread using evidence and cautious claims.
Identify who created a historical source.
Identify when and where a historical source was created.
Identify the intended or likely audience of a source.
Identify a source’s likely purpose, including administration, law, commemoration, persuasion, ritual, instruction, entertainment, or private communication.
Explain how purpose may shape what a source includes, emphasizes, or omits.
Explain continuity as something that remains or develops gradually across a period.
Explain change as a significant alteration in institutions, practices, population, territory, technology, belief, or daily life.
Distinguish short-term events from longer-term historical developments.
Compare continuity and change across a defined classical period.
Evaluate a source at a basic level by considering creator, date, audience, purpose, content, and limitation.
Use written, archaeological, artistic, architectural, numismatic, and environmental evidence together.
Construct a guided historical explanation containing a claim, evidence, source evaluation, and uncertainty.
Recognize that later sources may preserve valuable information while also reflecting later concerns.
Identify where stronger corroboration or perspective analysis would be needed in later historical study.
