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History, Civics & Social Studies · Grade 9

Early Societies and Human Environments

Learners examine the two-way relationship between early societies and their environments. They evaluate competing explanations for where farming and states arose, analyze reconstructed data on irrigation and soil salt in Mesopotamia, read climate 'proxy' evidence, and weigh multicausal theories of crisis such as the Late Bronze Age collapse, ending with an argument that avoids both environmental determinism and ignoring the environment.

  • 4 lessons
  • About 120 minutes
  • Societies and environments check: 9 questions
  • Ways to answer: choose an answer, estimate, highlight a text, match pairs, type a number and put in order
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What learners will discover

  • Explain how environments shaped early farming societies and evaluate environmental explanations, including critiques of environmental determinism.
  • Analyze the emergence of the first cities and states and compare theories of state formation using evidence.
  • Interpret reconstructed data on how societies changed their environments, such as irrigation and salinization in Mesopotamia.
  • Evaluate multicausal explanations of environmental crisis and collapse using climate proxy evidence and written sources.

Lessons

  1. Environment and the origins of farming 5 steps3 practiceabout 28 min
  2. Why did cities and states appear? 5 steps3 practiceabout 30 min
  3. Societies reshape their environments 5 steps3 practiceabout 30 min
  4. Climate, crisis and collapse 6 steps4 practiceabout 32 min
  5. Societies and environments check 9 questions at the end

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