NYCDOE: Passport to Social Studies - grade 2, unit 3

Note to Teachers: To help with remote and hybrid learning, digital materials for this unit are available on the NYCDOE TeachHub. Access these materials by following these instructions.

This is the third unit of the grade two scope and sequence, titled: Urban, Suburban, and Rural Communities. It was developed by a team of NYCDOE staff and teachers, in collaboration with scholars of the humanities and social sciences as well as museum curators. Students will immerse themselves in the topic by discussing focus questions, reading and analyzing a rich collection of diverse primary and secondary sources, examining artifacts, and interpreting images, such as paintings and photographs, maps, and political cartoons.

This guide offers a multitude of perspectives on kinds of communities and the characteristics of each type of community. Topics of representative lessons in this unit include: identifying features of urban, suburban and rural communities; explaining why people move from one community to another; explaining how population density makes communities unique.

To evaluate student mastery of content knowledge, cognitive processes, and critical thinking skills, this unit includes formative assessments, and a performance-based assessment activity, which has students describing features of each type of community; developing arguments about the advantages and disadvantages of each type of community; comparing and contrasting population density patterns of the different types of communities;

Please note: the complete set of NYCDOE K-8: Passport to Social Studies Core Curriculum materials include a wide-range of trade books and primary documents, in addition to this unit of study. In order to support rigorous social studies instruction and student inquiry, we recommend that teachers integrate these resources into their daily instruction and assessment plans.

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