What South Dakota's K-12 students will learn in social studies classes starting in 2025

It’s official: South Dakota has a new set of social studies standards that educators will start teaching to students in the fall of 2025.

That’s after the South Dakota Board of Education Standards passed that set Monday in Pierre, despite hearing from a majority of educators and the state’s nine tribes who all stood in solidarity opposing the standards.

A two-year implementation period for the standards will start in June at the South Dakota Department of Education office, along with the South Dakota Historical Society and the Office of Indian Education to help current teachers learn how to put the standards into practice, according to a press release from Gov. Kristi Noem’s office.

All in all, the standards take students from kindergarten through 12th grade and include content in the form of stories, historical figures, maps, research, images and historical documents, according to the introduction to the standards written by the DOE and workgroup.

There is no statewide assessment for social studies.

More: South Dakota social studies standards pass, despite opposition from educators, tribes

Here are some grade-by-grade highlights from the new standards, which have a spiral sequence that teaches students concepts from history in a chronological order, with students studying world history four times and American history and/or civics five times.

To see the full 179-page set of social studies standards, you will need to find the recent Board of Education Standards agenda online and look at item 6.N.

Elementary school: From before 60 B.C. to 1908

In the earliest elementary grades, kindergarteners’ content will consist of an “Introduction to America,” followed by world history to 315 and America from 1492-1787 in first grade, and world history from 315-1492 and American history from 1787-1908 in second grade.

Kindergarteners must be able to tell stories about a list of 64 historical figures ranging from Christopher Columbus to Barack Obama; learn 32 different symbols of the U.S. including the flag, seal, various monuments and holidays; and, give examples of virtues and actions related to hard work, personal potential and individual independence, among other standards.

First graders must be able to recite the preamble to the U.S. Constitution from memory and a line from the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

They must also demonstrate knowledge of several ancient civilizations across the globe and of European “exploration and settlement of what would become the United States,” among other standards.

More: New social studies standards should be 'free from political agendas and activism,' DOE draft states

Second graders must understand citizenship, the importance of a “knowledgeable, good and hard-working citizenry,” the fall of Rome, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, including knowledge of Muslims, Christians, Confucianism, Japanese Buddhism and much more.

Third graders’ content spans world history to 60 B.C.E. and American history from 1492-1763, followed by world history from 60 B.C.E. to 1300 C.E. and American history from 1763-1820 in fourth grade, then world history from 1300-1648 and American history from 1820-1908 in fifth grade.

In third grade, there’s an added section to demonstrate knowledge of colonial America, slavery and how the American colonist was “generally defined by certain traits, including being hard-working, determined, religious, skeptical of authority, and self-governing.”

Fourth graders must also demonstrate knowledge of events leading up to the American Revolution, the War of Independence and U.S. history from George Washington’s presidency to the War of 1812.

By fifth grade, students must be able to recite the Gettysburg Address from memory as well as know more about “westward expansion’s effects on relationships with Native Americans and the electoral divide over slavery.” They will also cover women’s suffrage, the Reformation, the Gilded Age and more.

Middle school: U.S. history from 1492 to 2008

In sixth grade, students’ content falls under “Influential Ideas in History and Civics: to 1815.”

Sixth grade includes a large focus on world geography, spanning the globe from all major continents except for Australia and Antarctica; a return to understanding influential ideas from time periods covered in earlier grades; and, ideas from the Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

In seventh grade, students’ content looks at America from 1492 to 1877.

More: What are the biggest changes between current and proposed social studies curriculum?

Seventh graders must give examples of patriotism; cover the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, memorizing paragraphs from the latter; explain traits of colonists; learn more about Washington’s presidency, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War and the “sectional divide” in the U.S. over slavery.

In eighth grade, students will examine America from 1877 to 2008.

Eighth graders will cover the Gilded Age, time after the Civil War, suffrage in South Dakota, boarding schools, World War I, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, cultural revolution, and the turn of the 21st Century up to the 2008 election, to name a few highlights.

High school: A little bit of everything, and more

High school standards include ancient to modern world history, world geography, U.S. history from 1492-2008, U.S. government and American civics, economics, and South Dakota and Native American history and civics.

These standards are broken down by subject, not by grade level, as the standards adopted in 2015 were.

World history and world geography standards cover much of what is covered in earlier grades, as well as identifying elements that make up a person’s culture, including political culture.

More: How South Dakota's social studies standards became so controversial

Economics standards include mentions of Karl Marx, Adam Smith, the free market, capitalism, agricultural economics, economic decisions, the principles of supply and demand, economic systems, major market structures, the business cycle and macroeconomic measurements, money and financial institutions, trade and commerce, and much more.

U.S. history standards include demonstrating knowledge of American and South Dakotan geography, comparing modern ways of life to prior eras in history, understanding of Native American people “before the arrival of Europeans and Africans,” settlement, colonial America, the American Revolution, founders’ arguments and some repeats from earlier grades.

U.S. government and American civics standards cover modern ways of life compared to prior eras, principles and examples from world history that influenced America’s founding, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, America’s principles, the institution of slavery, the Civil War, civil rights, 20th Century Progressivism, domestic policy, foreign policy, citizenship, politics, South Dakota and Native American government and politics, and finally, the American experiment in self-government compared to other historical and present-day regimes.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: South Dakota's new social studies standards broken down by grade