Grade 8 Social Studies
9 units matched to the Manitoba Curriculum.
Learning focus
- Grade 8 Social Studies: World History: Societies of the Past
- Cluster 1: Understanding Societies Past and Present
- Cluster 2: Early Societies in Mesopotamia, Egypt, or the Indus Valley
- Cluster 3: Ancient Societies of Greece and Rome
- Cluster 4: Transition to the Modern World (Circa 500 to 1400)
- Cluster 5: Shaping the Modern World (Circa 1400 to 1850)
Units
Unit 1
Being a Historian
Telling primary from secondary sources, fact from opinion and bias, reading timelines and maps, and checking where information comes from.
Learning outcome: 8-KH-027, 8-KH-028, 8-S-204, 8-S-207, 8-S-304, 8-S-306 · historical sources and evidence, timelines, maps, and fact from opinion
Unit 2
World Views & Early Societies
What a world view is, how hunter-gatherer and farming societies differ, what makes a civilization, and why writing and farming changed early societies.
Learning outcome: 8-KI-005, 8-KI-006, 8-KI-007, 8-KI-008, 8-KI-011, 8-KI-012 · world views, society and civilization, hunter-gatherer and farming societies
Unit 3
Ancient Greece
Athens and Sparta, how democracy began and who could take part, Greek myths and thinkers, and the Greek ideas still used today.
Learning outcome: 8-KC-001, 8-KC-002, 8-KC-003, 8-KI-015, 8-KI-016, 8-KH-031, 8-KH-032 · Greek social order, the rise of democracy, Athens and Sparta, myths and lasting ideas
Unit 4
Ancient Rome
How Rome grew from a republic to an empire, the army, roads and aqueducts, the rule of law, and why the Western Roman Empire fell.
Learning outcome: 8-KC-004, 8-KL-025, 8-KP-046, 8-KP-047, 8-KP-048, 8-KE-056 · Roman government, expansion, technology, the rule of law and the empire's decline
Unit 5
Medieval Europe
How medieval Europe was organized (kings, nobles, knights and peasants), the role of the Church and guilds, the Magna Carta, the Black Death, and how change came to the feudal system.
Learning outcome: 8-KH-035, 8-KP-052, 8-KE-057 · feudalism, the Church and how work and education were organized in medieval Europe
Unit 6
The Islamic World
The early Islamic world and its cities, scholars and discoveries (such as algebra and optics), the exchange of knowledge through trade and translation, and the Ottoman Empire.
Learning outcome: 8-KI-018, 8-KP-049, 8-KP-053 · Islamic achievements, the Arab conquests and the Ottoman Empire
Unit 7
Trade & Empires
Trade routes across Asia and Africa, the wealth of Mali and Timbuktu, the Mongol Empire, Zheng He's voyages, and how trade carried goods and ideas, and sometimes conflict.
Learning outcome: 8-KI-019, 8-KP-051, 8-KG-041 · China, the Mongol Empire and the spread of ideas and technologies
Unit 8
Renaissance & Reformation
The rebirth of art and learning in Italy, how the printing press spread ideas, the Reformation, and how questioning led to new science.
Learning outcome: 8-KI-020, 8-KH-036, 8-KH-037 · the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation
Unit 9
Exploration & Exchange
Why Europeans sailed across oceans, what the Mexica and Inca empires were like, the Columbian Exchange of foods, animals and diseases, and the serious consequences for Indigenous peoples and for enslaved Africans.
Learning outcome: 8-KI-021, 8-KL-026, 8-KG-044 · European voyages, and their impact on the peoples they met
Ready to try Gradelings?
Curriculum-matched practice for Kindergarten to Grade 9 in British Columbia and Ontario and Alberta and Saskatchewan and Manitoba, with kind hints, learning games and no ads. Free for 30 days, no card needed.