Grade 2: My Community and Other United States Communities
In the grade 2 social studies program, students explore rural, urban, and suburban communities, concentrating on communities in the United States. The student’s own community can serve as an example for studying about and understanding other communities. Students study about communities from the perspectives of the five social studies learning standards. Community studies should include content examples from cultures other than the students’ own, and from a variety of perspectives including geographic, socioeconomic, and ethnic. Students continue to learn how to locate places on maps and globes and how different communities are influenced by geographic and environmental factors. They also study about the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in their communities.
| Grade 2 ~ Content Understandings | Concepts/ Themes |
| My community and region today
•My urban, suburban, or rural community can be located on a map.
•Urban, suburban, and rural communities differ from place to place.
•Events, people, traditions, practices, and ideas make up my urban, suburban, or rural community.
•Communities in the future may be different in many ways.
•My urban, suburban, or rural community has changed over time.
•Roles and responsibilities of families in rural, urban, and suburban communities change over time.
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• Places and Regions
• Change
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| People depending on and modifying the physical environment
•Rural, urban, and suburban communities are influenced by geographic and environmental factors.
•Lifestyles in rural, urban, and suburban communities are influenced by environmental and geographic factors.
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•Environment and Society
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| Challenge of meeting needs and wants
•Rural, urban, and suburban communities provide facilities and services to help meet the needs and wants of the people who live there.
•People in rural, urban, and suburban communities are producers and consumers of goods and services.
•People in rural, urban, and suburban communities must make choices due to unlimited needs and wants and limited resources.
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•Needs and Wants
•Factors of Production
•Needs and Wants
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| People using human, capital, and natural resources
•Scarcity of resources requires people to make choices in urban, rural, and suburban communities.
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•Factors of Production
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| Economic decision making
•Rural, urban, and suburban communities collect taxes to provide services for the public benefit.
•Rural, urban, and suburban communities make decisions about how to spend the taxes they collect.
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•Economic Systems
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| Symbols of citizenship
•Citizenship includes an understanding of the significance of the flag of the United States of America, including an understanding about its display and use.
•People living in urban, rural, and suburban communities celebrate various holidays.
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•Citizenship and Civic
Life |
| Rights, responsibilities, and roles of citizenship
•People living in rural, urban, and suburban communities may have conflicts over rules, rights, and responsibilities.
•Citizens can participate in decision making, problem solving, and conflict resolution.
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•Citizenship and Civic
Life |
| Making and changing rules and laws
•People in rural, urban, and suburban communities develop rules and laws to govern and protect community members.
•Our local communities have elected and appointed leaders who make, enforce, and interpret rules and laws.
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•Decision Making
•Government
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