Oklahoma Social Studies 4.C.2

Standard Cluster

Apply the tools and concepts of geography to examine the physical and human geography of the United States of America. Use geographic tools to acquire and process information from a spatial perspective. Use and describe various elements of maps (e.g., key/legend, scale, cardinal and intermediate directions) to examine the physical and human features of the nation. Use maps and other geographic representations (e.g., globes, charts, graphs) and geographic technologies to draw conclusions (e.g., settlement patterns, population trends, population density, relative location of natural resources to manufacturing centers). Use the system of latitude and longitude to identify the absolute location of physical and human features of the United States of America. Interpret aerial photographs, satellite images, and thematic maps to locate and identify physical and human features of the United States of America and North America. Analyze the human and physical characteristics of the United States of America using the Five Themes of Geography (location, place, human-environment-interaction, movement, region) as a strategy to organize and compare each major region of the United States of America. Identify major physical regions of the United States of America and their unique features. Identify the location and the physical characteristics of the major landforms and bodies of water in the United States of America. Describe the location of major climate zones (tropical, temperate, continental, polar) explaining how climate affects natural vegetation. Draw conclusions from geographic data to explain how climate, vegetation, and bodies of water can affect the location and growth of settlements and the development of economic activities. Analyze the human characteristics of the United States of America. Identify and locate on a political map the fifty states, the nation’s capital and its most populated cities. Explain how the United States of America is home to people from different places and from many backgrounds. Examine motives for human migration by identifying basic push and pull factors (e.g., pull factors: economic opportunity, religious freedom, education; push factors: instability, conflict, natural disasters), using examples from United States of America history. Examine the concept of culture, including the distribution and complexity of major cultural groups of the United States of America. Identify the characteristics of culture (e.g., language, customs, religious beliefs, food, clothing, shelter) and compare cultural characteristics of different regions, including the influence of Native peoples and immigrants to each region and how they contribute to a shared American culture. Explain how culture can affect the ways in which people live and how culture can change over time through cultural diffusion. Analyze how humans interact with their environments in order to meet their needs and wants. Explain how humans adapt to the physical environment (e.g., food, shelter, earning a living) by identifying historical and contemporary examples. Describe how humans modify the environment to meet their needs (e.g., clearing of forests, crop rotation and irrigation, conservation, extraction of fossil fuels, construction of housing additions and businesses). Identify major projects in which Americans have modified the environment for the development of regions (e.g., Mississippi River levees, Hoover Dam, Golden Gate Bridge, Colorado River Aqueduct, Trans-Alaska Pipeline, New York skyline). Identify ways in which economic activities can affect ecosystems (e.g., clearing forests,draining wetlands, diverting waterways) by examining present-day issues related to the use of resources and the importance of supporting human development while being responsible with resources.

Oklahoma Academic Standards for Social Studies (2026)