Oklahoma Social Studies 6.C.3.5.E
The Standard
- 6.C.3
- Identify the characteristics, distribution, and demographic patterns of human populations and systems of the Western Hemisphere.
- 6.C.3.5
- Describe the ethnic heritage of Indigenous cultures of the Western Hemisphere.
Explain how the Inca were able to control an expansive empire in the Andes, developing a strong central government and innovations in agriculture.
Oklahoma Academic Standards for Social Studies (2026) · 6.C.3.5
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain how Inca leaders governed distant communities across the Andes. They connect roads, runners, officials, and required labor to government control. They explain how terraces and canals helped grow food.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can trace an order from the emperor to a distant village through governors and road runners. They can explain how required labor built roads and terraces. They can show how terraces and canals grew food on steep slopes.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think the Inca used wheeled carts on their roads, rather than foot runners and pack llamas. They may see terraces as stairs, not fields that held soil and water. Some assume distant villages had no Inca officials or labor duties.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: A village sits far from the Inca capital on a steep slope. Name two ways leaders could keep control and one way villagers could grow food there. Explain each.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Build cardboard terraces on a soil slope in a tray, then pour water and compare runoff with an unterraced slope.
Write three sentences explaining how a governor, a road runner, and a storehouse could help the Inca govern a distant village.
Sort cards labeled roads, runners, governors, terraces, and canals into send orders, move supplies, and grow food. Defend any card that fits two groups.
Compare a photo of present-day Andean terrace farms with a flat field. Write which would work better on a steep slope and why.
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