The Americas

Human Geography and Regional Geographical Systems of the Americas

This geography cluster focuses on the people and places of Latin America, introducing students to the region’s diverse inhabitants, where they chose to build their communities, and the physical and human geography of three specific regions of Latin America: Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. Students will explore the many facets of Latin American geography through videos, texts, and maps. They will also become familiar with the geographical features of the three regions through research and mapping.

The Americas’ Earliest Complex Societies

In this cluster, students will investigate some of the earliest American lifeways and societies that archaeologists have begun to reconstruct in Mexico and South America. The Caral-Supe (or Norte Chico) civilization of Peru and the Olmec civilization of Mexico are two of the earth’s complex societies that historians consider “cradles of civilization” because they arose independently of any others. Students will examine these through the lens of ancient world innovation, considering how they utilized natural resources to develop unique practices of daily life. Note: If your class has been adding to a comparative timeline across the 6th grade year (digital or physical), it is highly recommended that you add the civilizations of Caral-Supe and the Olmec to your chronology.

Mesoamerican Societies: The Teotihuacan

This lesson cluster introduces students to one of the major complex societies of Mesoamerica: the Teotihuacan. In the lessons, students delve into ways in which the design and features of cities—a focus of study in this unit—provide windows into the beliefs and values of their inhabitants, including their cosmological vision.

Mesoamerican Societies: The Maya

This cluster focuses on the Maya. These lessons introduce students to Maya city-states, rulership, ritual traditions, a creation myth, systems of knowledge, and trade. It also offers opportunities to draw comparisons with other ancient societies they have studied. Note: To learn more about the Maya today, see the video The Maya People (NMAI).

Taíno Culture and the Ancient Caribbean

This brief cluster, built around the Supporting Question above, centers the culture and history of the Taíno–the region’s predominant Indigenous group–that settled in the Caribbean more than 2,000 years ago. By the 1st millennium CE, historians describe the ancient Caribbean as a bustling highway of movement and exchange, where skillful mariners connected island societies to one another and to other peoples and cultures of the Americas, including the Maya. An important element of this cluster is the culturally affirming recognition that Indigenous people have endured, and that knowing their history matters to them as it matters to all people.