Colorado Academic Standards Online

Colorado Essential Skills:

1. Apply knowledge to set goals, make informed decisions and transfer to new contexts. (Personal Skills: Initiative/Self-Direction)
2. Engage in novel approaches, directions, ideas, and/or perspectives while using inquiry and primary sources. (Entrepreneurial Skills: Creativity/Innovation)
3. Plan and evaluate complex solutions to global challenges, within the Western Hemisphere, which are appropriate to their contexts using multiple disciplinary perspectives, such as cultural, historical, and scientific. (Civic Interpersonal Skills: Global/Cultural Awareness)
4. Using geographic tools and resources, demonstrate task management attributes associated with producing high quality products including the abilities to: (a) Work positively and ethically; (b) Manage time and projects effectively; (c) Multi-task, and; (d) Clearly communicate with others. (Professional Skills: Task/Time Management).

Inquiry Questions:

1. How can geographic tools be used to solve problems in the future?
2. Why does where we live influence how we live?
3. How do populations, physical features, resources, and perceptions of places and regions change over time?
4. How have geographic factors influenced human settlement, economic activity, and land acquisition?

Nature and Skills of Geography:

1. Spatial thinkers use geographic tools to develop spatial thinking and awareness skills.
2. Spatial thinkers use geographic tools to help to solve problems in daily life. For example: a car GPS is used to find a location, maps are used by tourists, and directions are found on the internet.
3. Geographic thinkers evaluate patterns that connect people in the Western Hemisphere to the rest of the world.
4. Geographic thinkers explore how technology is used by individuals and businesses to answer geographic problems such as the spread of disease, migration patterns, and distribution and loss of resources like water supplies.

Disciplinary, Information, and Media Literacy:

1. Integrate visual information such as charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps, with other information in print and digital texts.
2. Explain and justify decisions and shared content through the use of online maps, graphs, charts, data and diagrams.
3. Manage the flow of information from a wide variety of sources.
4. Present arguments or information in a logical sequence with a clear claim, supportive evidence, and effective presence that builds credibility.
5. Generate questions to guide research, gather information from print and digital sources, determine biases and credibility of sources, cite sources accurately, and use evidence to answer their research question

Colorado Essential Skills:

1. Look for and find value in different perspectives expressed by others in the Western Hemisphere. (Personal Skills: Adaptability/Flexibility)
2. Plan and evaluate complex solutions to global challenges within the Western Hemisphere which are appropriate to their contexts using multiple disciplinary perspectives such as cultural, historical, and scientific. (Civic Interpersonal Skills: Global/Cultural Awareness)
3. Apply knowledge to set goals, make informed decisions and transfer to new contexts. (Personal Skills: Initiative/Self-Direction)

Inquiry Questions:

1. What are different ways to define the Western Hemisphere based on human and physical systems?
2. How have people interacted with the environment over time in a positive or negative way?
3. How has globalization affected people and places?
4. In what ways are places on Earth interdependent?

Nature and Skills of Geography:

1. Geographic thinkers examine places and regions and the connections among them.
2. Geographic thinkers study how human and physical systems vary and interact to make better choices, decisions, and predictions. For example: resource distribution or trade is based on geographic features and environmental changes which affect business decisions.
3. Geographic thinkers analyze data regarding physical and human systems to make informed choices regarding production, trade, and resource acquisition.
4. Geographic thinkers use geographic information about human and physical systems to make decisions such as establishing trade routes, locating cities, trade centers and capitals, and establishing outposts and security systems like forts and walls.

Disciplinary, Information, and Media Literacy:

1. Analyze in detail how a key individual, event, or idea is introduced, illustrated, and elaborated in a text.
2. Demonstrate positive social and ethical behaviors when using technology and discuss consequences of inappropriate use.
3. Use information accurately and creatively for the issue or problem at hand.
4. Analyze different texts (including experiments, simulations, video, or multimedia texts) to compare and contrast competing theories, points of view, and arguments in the discipline.