In this required course, students analyze the relationships between people, places, and environments.  Students use problem-solving and decision-making skills to ask and answer geographic questions as well as to determine the geographic factors which have influenced past and present events. A significant portion of the course will center around physical processes, places, and regions, the environment, the political, economic and social processes that shape cultural patterns, human systems such as population distribution and urbanization patterns, and the economic conditions which have led to and reinforced the developed and developing world.

The purpose of this required one-year course is to provide students with a thematic study of world history.  Students study and answer questions surrounding major themes in history including culture and civilization, government, economics, belief systems, cooperation and conflict, science and technology, and humanities.  This approach allows students to make connections between historical and current events. This course is enriched with various activities which help students learn social studies skills as well as historical content. These activities include computer technology, simulations, writing, role-playing, decision making, and other authentic assessments

This course is a required one-year study of the United States from 1877 to the present. This time span is divided into small units such as the Progressives, Civil Rights, and the Cold War. Within each unit several factors are considered: geographic, political, economic, social, and international events. Emphasis is placed on relating the effects of past events to the present. The course is enriched with various activities which help students learn social studies skills as well as historical content. These include computer technology, simulations, writing, role playing, decision-making, and authentic assessment.