Georgia SS3H2

Social Studies3rd GradeHistorical Understandings

Georgia Standard (Element Cluster)

Describe European exploration in North America.

Georgia Standards of Excellence for Social Studies

Cluster contents

SS3H2 is a Georgia social studies standard. These are the elements under it.

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students explain why Europeans sailed, including trade, wealth, land, religion, and competition. They identify the major voyages of Columbus, Cabot, Balboa, de Soto, Cartier, and Hudson and locate the regions involved. They describe obstacles and examples of cooperation and conflict with Native peoples.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student can match each explorer to a sponsoring country, route or region, and major result. The student can explain one motive, one obstacle, and how an encounter affected Europeans and Native peoples.
Common Misconceptions: Students often treat exploration as discovery, overlooking the Native peoples already living in these places. They may mix up explorers, sponsors, and routes, or assume every encounter was either friendly or violent. Some confuse a voyage's goal with its actual result.
How to Assess It: Exit ticket: Choose one explorer and name the sponsoring country, destination, goal, one obstacle, and one result of the voyage.

Lesson moves

Place explorer cards on a floor map, trace each route with yarn, and attach cards naming a goal, obstacle, and result.
Write: Did European exploration bring more cooperation or conflict for Native peoples? Support your claim with two examples.
Play explorer match-up using cards for each explorer, sponsoring country, route, goal, and major result.
Use a current map to find the Hudson River, Canada, Florida, and the Pacific, then connect each place to an explorer.

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