Fourth Grade Social Studies Essential Learning Goals
Geography
Skills:
1. Identify prehistoric features of Missouri, such as glaciers and volcanoes.
2. Identify the major rivers of Missouri.
3. Locate the cities of Kansas City, Springfield, St. Louis, Jefferson City, Columbia, and St.
Joseph.
4. Describe the major geographical features of each U.S. region.
5. Describe how climate and geographical features affect a region’s products and industries.
6. Identify each U.S. state on a map.
7. Name the capital and postal abbreviation of each U.S. state.
8. Describe how people are affected by, depend on, adapt to, and change their environments.
9. Create maps, timelines, diagrams, and cartoons to demonstrate knowledge.
10. Construct and interpret maps.
11. Use maps, satellite images, photographs, and other representation to explain relationships
between the locations of places and regions and their environmental characteristics.
12. Use maps of different scales to describe the locations of cultural and environmental
characteristics.
13. Analyze the effects of catastrophic environmental and technological events on human
settlements and migration.
14. Explain why environmental characteristics vary among different U.S. regions.
Culture
Skills:
1. Describe characteristics of the Mound Builders.
2. Discuss famous Missourians and their contributions to society.
3. Identify and create artifacts (such as building structures and materials, works of art
representative of cultures, fossils, pottery, tools, clothing, and musical instruments).
4. Explain how culture influences the way people modify and adapt to their environments.
5. Explain how the cultural and environmental characteristics of places change over time.
6. Describe how environmental and cultural characteristics influence population distribution in
specific places or regions.
7. Identify the ways groups of people celebrate their culture.
8. Compare and contrast the cultural traditions of groups of people in each region of the United
States.
9. Describe how American Indian tribes have affected the cultures of each region.
10. Explain how the origin of a group of people affects the culture of a region.
11. Describe the music, food, and festivals specific to each region of the United States.
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Fourth Grade Social Studies Essential Learning Goals
Economics
Skills:
1. Recognize the importance of bridges and railroads as a way to support Missouri’s economy
after the Civil War.
2. Explain how the state gets the money it needs to provide goods and services, especially by the
collection of sales taxes.
3. Explain the importance of trade to the people of Missouri’s past.
4. Identify examples of the variety of resources and natural resources that are used to produce
goods and services.
5. Explain the meaning of unemployment.
6. Identify products of each region of the United States and their importance to the region’s
economy.
7. Identify natural resources of each region of the United States and their importance to the
region’s economy.
8. Describe key industries of each region of the United States and how these industries support
the region’s economy.
9. Describe how influential people and their contributions have influences the economy of a
region.
Government
Skills:
1. Identify and explain why Missouri has a constitution and why the state makes and enforces
laws.
2. Identify rights included in the Bill of Rights.
3. Describe how authoritative decisions are made, enforced and interpreted within the state
government.
4. Identify and explain the functions of the three branches of government in the state government.
History
Skills:
1. Evaluate the significance of the arrival of the French explorers, fur traders, and missionaries to Missouri.
2. Describe the significance of importance events of Westward expansion, as they apply to Missouri
history.
3. Describe Missouri’s journey to statehood, including the Missouri Compromise.
4. Discuss the role of Missouri in the Civil War.
5. Identify and describe the significance of the individuals from Missouri who have made contributions to
our state and national heritage.
Outline issues of Missouri statehood, such as the Missouri Compromise.
Summarize Missouri’s role in WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII.
Sequence and describe the importance of the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Explain Missouri’s role as a border state in the Civil War.
Evaluate the impact of westward expansion on the Native American in Missouri.
Describe the changes in Missouri since the Civil War in education, transportation and communication.
Identify and describe the early Native American tribes of Missouri.
Compare life in specific historical time periods to life today.
Generate questions about individuals and groups who have shaped significant historical changes and
continuities.
15. Identify the cause and effect of historical events.
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Fourth Grade Social Studies Essential Learning Goals
Global Connections
Skills:
1. Recognize the role of immigrants as the building blocks of our nation’s populations.
Tools of Social Science Inquiry
Skills:
1. Use and evaluate primary sources.
2. Identify and use library and media resources.
3. Compare information provided by different historical sources about the past.
4. Research a topic using a variety of text and online resources and present information clearly in
a variety of ways.
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