Florida SS.7.CG.1.2
The Standard
Trace the principles underlying America's founding ideas on law and government.
Florida Next Generation Sunshine State Standards for Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students identify ideas such as natural rights, rule of law, consent of the governed, limited government, and separation of powers. They connect these ideas to earlier thinkers, documents, and American founding documents.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can link an earlier source or thinker to a founding principle, then show where that principle appears in a founding document. The explanation uses accurate evidence and describes how the idea limits power or protects rights.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may treat each principle as a separate fact instead of showing how ideas moved from earlier sources into American government. They may confuse natural rights with government-granted privileges or think limited government means weak government. Some assume one thinker or document supplied all the founding ideas.
How to Assess It
- Give students one short excerpt from Locke and one from the Declaration of Independence. Ask them to name the shared principle and explain the connection in two sentences.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give groups cards naming Magna Carta, English Bill of Rights, Locke, and Montesquieu, then match each to a principle and founding document.
Write: Which principle best protects people from government abuse, natural rights, rule of law, consent, or limited government? Defend with evidence.
Run a three-column relay where teams match source excerpts, founding principles, and examples from the Declaration or Constitution.
Analyze a school rule and decide whether it reflects consent, equal application of law, and limits on authority.
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Printable SS.7.CG.1.2 Worksheet
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Related Standards
- SS.6.CG.1
Demonstrate an understanding of the origins and purposes of government, law and the American political system.
- SS.8.CG.1
Demonstrate an understanding of the origins and purposes of government, law and the American political system.
- SS.8.CG.3.1
Trace the foundational ideals and principles related to the U.S. government expressed in primary sources from the colonial period to Reconstruction.
- SS.7.CG.1
Demonstrate an understanding of the origins and purposes of government, law and the American political system.
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