Social Studies 9 (from 2026/27)

Grade: 9
Subject Area/Course Credit: Social Studies, 1 credit
Prerequisite: None

Social Studies at ZIS is a concept-driven, skills-oriented program that empowers students to explore how people, ideas, and environments shape our world. Across history, geography, civics, and economics, students examine human behaviour, cultural interactions, systems of power, and global challenges.

Students develop critical literacy, analytical thinking, and research skills by engaging with diverse sources, including maps, artifacts, documents, data, and media. Learning emphasizes questioning, collaboration, authentic inquiry, reflection, and student choice, with opportunities to connect learning to real-world issues. Assessment prioritizes reflection, growth, and agency, using varied formats, conferencing, and goal-setting. Classrooms foster resilience, risk-taking, and civil discourse.

In Social Studies 9, students explore thematic concepts such as causation, continuity and change, comparison, chronology, significance, and perspective. Topics include medicine and public health, belief systems, the impact of ideas, empire-building and leadership, exploitation, and conflict. Transferable skill development includes research, essay writing, source analysis, and analytical thinking. Students demonstrate their learning through presentations, debates, discussions, analytical writing, and research projects.