Grade 6: Sample Learning Activities
- Have students make a chart with three columns labeled: Families, Clans, and Tribal Groups. Have students use dictionaries and encyclopedias to define each term and to list the characteristics of each group. Ask students to identify similarities and differences among the three groups. Have students research how each group helps to maintain law and order in their societies. Ask: Who serves as a leader in each group? How are leaders selected? How do leaders maintain and exercise power? How are rules made? Who enforces rules and laws? How are disagreements and conflicts resolved? Who serves as the judge(s) in each group? How are the judges selected? How are decisions made in each group? How are group decisions carried out? (Adapted from: Social Studies Instructional Strategies and Resources: Prekindergarten Through Grade 6, New York State Education Department, 2003, p. 250.)
- Ask students to brainstorm a list of reasons for creating governments explaining why all groups and societies need to select leaders, make rules and laws, resolve conflicts, make decisions, and provide for the common good of all their members. Ask students to speculate about what might happen in the absence of government and rules. Have students research historic examples of early Eastern Hemisphere civilizations to find out how they maintained law and order, selected leaders and decision makers, made decisions, carried out decisions, resolved conflicts, expressed the roles and responsibilities of citizenship and governed themselves.
- Provide students with selected laws from Hammurabi's Code of Law. Hammurabi, the Priest King, ruled Babylon and authored 282 laws to ensure proper and just conduct among the people of Mesopotamia. The following examples were taken from www.phillipmartin.info/hammurabi/hammurabi:
- If anyone steals the property of the temple or of the court, he shall be put to death and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death.
- If anyone breaks a hole into a house (in order to break in to steal), he shall be put to death before that hole and buried there.
- If anyone is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death.
- If a man puts out the eye of another man, his own eye shall be put out.
- If he breaks another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.
- If a son strikes his father, his hand shall be hewn (chopped) off.
- If anyone brings an accusation of a crime or offense before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital (murder) offense charged, be put to death.
Ask students to explain what each law means and to summarize its purpose. Ask student to explain whether they think these laws are "just laws." Ask students why Hammurabi thought it was important to institute a code of written laws.
- Have students visit http://www.colonize.com/p/a.php?a=n001001182 and http://www.dalton.org/groups/rome to research the histories of ancient Greece and Rome to find out about the origins of republican government, civic virtue, citizenship, and the "common good." Students should describe the evolution of democracy in ancient Athens and compare and contrast the roles of citizens and the types of governments in the city-states of Athens and Sparta. They should explain how government was limited in the governments of ancient Athens and in the Roman republic. Ask students to summarize how the concepts of citizenship, representative government, the rule of law, and direct democracy in ancient Greece and Rome influenced the founders of the American constitutional system.
- Ask students to compare the roles and responsibilities of citizenship in Athens, Sparta, and Rome. Provide students with a graphic organizer that presents those roles that differ and those that each city shares. Students can research these roles of citizenship by visiting http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/12tables.html and http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/programs/spartans/index.html
- Have students study an Eastern Hemisphere nation over time to determine how its government has changed and adapted in order to meet the more complex needs of its society. Students can visit the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) website at www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook. Ask students to identify major historic events that influenced this nation and to explain how these events changed the political order or form of government. Ask students to describe how the rights and responsibilities of citizens have changed over time. Does this nation have a constitution and, if so, how has it changed over time? How has this nation interacted economically, politically, socially, and culturally with other nations of the world? How has this nation resolved conflicts with other nations of the world, through peaceful means or through conflict?
- Have students research the goals, objectives, and programs of the major international organizations in the world today. These organizations include the United Nations, NATO, the Organization of American States, the African Union, the European Union, and the World Court. Ask students to describe their purposes and functions and to explain how they help to resolve conflicts, promote peace, and foster cultural understanding. Students can visit the United Nations website at www.un.org
- Students can investigate how major nongovernmental organizations such as the International Red Cross (www.redcross.org), the
World Council of Churches, Amnesty International (www.amnestyusa.org) and Doctors Without Borders also interact in order to promote peace and resolve conflicts among Eastern Hemisphere nations. Have students work in small groups to collect information about these organizations and have them report their findings to the class.
- Ask students to read the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and to summarize its major articles. Have pairs of students select one article and prepare a brief oral report in which they explain the provisions of the article in their own words. Students can find the Convention on the United Nations website at www.un.org.
- Have students compare the monuments, symbols, and political art of selected Eastern Hemisphere nations that represent different geographic and cultural regions of the world. Ask students to explain how a nation's symbols reflect its political values. For example, what symbols are portrayed on the nation's flag and what do these symbols represent? What monuments, museums, historic sites, and statues has this nation erected? What do these structures stand for, whom do they honor, and why? How has this nation changed its national symbols over time? Which political and/or national leaders have fallen out of favor over time? Who has replaced them as a national leader?
Information about various national flags can be found in the teacher's guide to "A Salute to Our Flag" on the Law, Youth and Citizenship Program website at www.lycny.org.
- Have students read one of the following books about the Nazi Holocaust to discuss how societies ignored and violated the rule of law and citizens' civil and human rights as they committed the crime of genocide: Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, Sleeping Boy by Sonia Craddock, Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust by Eve Bunting, Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti, and Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine. Ask students to explain how individuals were able to keep their dignity and achieve individual triumphs while being subjected to discrimination, persecution, and genocide. Discuss with students how the concepts of denial of reality, indifference, prejudicial attitudes, conformity, and blind obedience to authority apply to the events of the Holocaust.
