Social Studies Update

In Social Studies, we are focusing on the two ancient governments that have impacted the development of the US Government.  First, the students studied Greek city-states and focused on Athens & Sparta.  We talked about democracy and how the culture of Athens drove their participation in government.  In class, we used real-life situations that the Athenian ecclesia debated and voted on to get a feel for exactly how a direct democracy worked.  I was very impressed with students' ability to form their own conclusions quickly based on the roles in society they were assigned.  The attached photos are from this activity :)

This week, we started looking at Ancient Rome & are currently focusing on location & overall values.  Soon we will be looking specifically at the Roman Republic's representative democracy and comparing it to our government.