Samoa Social Science Curriculum - Primary School

This curriculum outlines the Social Studies course for primary school levels, focusing on three strands: Society, Culture and Heritage; Place and Environment; and Resources and Economic Activities. These strands are interwoven with three key processes: Inquiry, Values Exploration, and Social Decision Making. The curriculum aims to develop informed, confident, and responsible citizens.

Year Four

Strand 1: Society, Culture and Heritage

• Achievement Objective: Students learn how people organize themselves in response to challenge and crisis.
• Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to identify types of challenges and crises faced by people (social, technological, economic, political, cultural) and explain how groups and individuals can work together to address these.
• Achievement Objective: Students learn why people exercise their rights and meet their responsibilities.
• Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to identify rights of people at different ages and in different groups and describe factors (economic, cultural, age-related, status-related, religious) that shape people's responsibilities and how they meet them.
• Achievement Objective: Students learn why and how individuals and groups pass on and sustain their culture and heritage.
• Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to explain the importance people attach to their culture and heritage, describe ways cultural practices and heritage are recorded and passed on (myths, legends, stories, carvings, paintings, songs, schooling), and give examples of how people retain their culture and heritage when moving to a new community. Essential Learning about Samoa for Year 4: The historical influence of other cultures and heritages on belief systems in Samoa (social, political, or religious). Example topic: Origins of Kale, Sapasui, and Pisupo.

Strand 2: Place and Environment

• Achievement Objective: Students learn how places reflect past interactions of people with the environment.
• Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to identify landscape features reflecting past human activities, explain how these features may result from interactions between people and the environment, and explain why some features endure while others disappear (considering legislation, isolation, durability, and significance to people).
• Achievement Objective: Students learn why people find out about places and environments.
• Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to identify different reasons for finding out about places and environments and give examples of different ways people find out about them (direct experience, discussion, books, television).
• Achievement Objective: Students learn how people find out about places and environments.
• Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to identify consequences for cultures of exposure to new ideas and explain why individuals or groups (explorers, navigators, travelers) have undertaken journeys and recorded ideas about places and environments.

Strand 3: Resources and Economic Activities

• Achievement Objective: Students learn how and why people view and use resources differently.
• Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to identify different values people attach to a resource (aesthetic, industrial, spiritual, recreational) and describe different ways various cultural groups may use the same resource.
• Achievement Objective: Students learn the consequences of using resources differently.
• Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to explain why people's views and uses of a resource may change over time (technological change, resource depletion, legislation) and explain how opportunities and limitations may arise when resources are viewed or used in new ways.
• Achievement Objective: Students learn how and why individuals and groups seek to safeguard the rights of consumers.
• Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to explain what a consumer is and why they have rights, explain processes consumers use to protect their rights, and describe the work of an individual who safeguards consumer rights.

Social Studies Processes

The following processes are integrated throughout the curriculum, with specific learning outcomes for each year level:

• Inquiry: Students develop skills in collecting, processing, and communicating information about human society.
• Values Exploration: Students explore and analyze values, explaining their own values positions and the reasons why people hold particular values.
• Social Decision Making: Students learn to make decisions about possible social action, identifying issues, developing solutions, and making choices about possible actions.