Learn with AI - Member

Social Sciences Grade 9

This course integrates History and Geography, taught and assessed each term. Final grades are an average of the two subjects.

Term 1: Map Skills (Focus: Topographic and Orthophoto Maps)

Contour Lines: Understanding contour lines, identifying steep and gentle slopes, and recognizing river valleys and spurs.
1:10 000 Orthophoto Maps: Working with vertical aerial photographs and orthophoto images, understanding how height is represented, and identifying features using contour lines.
1:50 000 Topographic Maps: Reading map symbols to identify natural and constructed features, understanding height clues and contour patterns, using scale and measuring distance, and using coordinates.
Information from Maps and Photographs: Interpreting information to describe landscapes, identify land use, and analyze settlement patterns.

Term 2: Development Issues (Focus: South Africa and World)

Development: Defining development, exploring ways of measuring development, understanding the Human Development Index (HDI), and comparing development levels in different countries and regions.
Factors Affecting Development: Examining reasons for development disparities, including historical factors (colonialism), trade imbalances, technology and industrialization, health and welfare, education, and political stability.
Opportunities for Development: Investigating opportunities for more equitable trade, alternative development strategies, and sustainable development.

Term 3: Surface Forces that Shape the Earth (Physical Geography)

Weathering: Defining weathering and exploring physical, chemical, and biological weathering processes, including the impact of human activities.
Erosion and Deposition: Differentiating between weathering, erosion, and deposition, and examining river features of erosion and deposition.
The Impact of People on Soil Erosion: Investigating human contributions to erosion through agriculture, construction, and mining, with a case study on agriculture.

Term 4: Resource Use and Sustainability (Focus: World)

Resource Use: Exploring the uses of renewable and non-renewable resources and the effects of unwise resource use, such as over-fishing or over-grazing.
Sustainable Use of Resources: Defining sustainable and unsustainable resource use, exploring ways to use resources sustainably (sustainable fishing or sustainable land use for grazing), and examining the role of consumers.
Food Resources: Defining food security, investigating the role of science and technology in food production (factory farming, genetic modification), and exploring sustainable farming practices.

Term 1: World War II (1919-1945)

The Rise of Nazi Germany: Examining the end of World War I, the Weimar Republic, the Treaty of Versailles, the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, the impact of the Great Depression, the failure of Weimar democracy, public support for Nazism, the Enabling Act and Nazi dictatorship, the Nuremberg Laws, and the persecution of various groups.
World War II: Europe: Exploring Nazi Germany's expansionist foreign policy, the outbreak of World War II, extermination camps and the Holocaust, and examples of resistance to Nazism.

Term 2: The Nuclear Age and the Cold War & World War II in the Pacific

World War II in the Pacific: Examining the events of World War II in the Pacific, including the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Increasing Tension After WWII: Exploring the growing tension between the USSR (communism) and the USA and West (capitalism).
End of WWII and the Nuclear Age: Examining the end of World War II, the atomic bombings, and the beginning of the Nuclear Age.
The Cold War: Defining the superpowers and the Cold War, exploring areas of conflict and competition (arms race, space race, division of Germany and the Berlin Wall), and examining the end of the Cold War.

Term 3: Turning Points in South African History since 1948 & 1960

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Understanding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after World War II.
1948 National Party and Apartheid: Defining racism, examining racial segregation before apartheid, and outlining the main apartheid laws (Group Areas Act).
1950s Repression and Resistance: Exploring repression and non-violent resistance, including the Defiance Campaign, the Freedom Charter, the Treason Trial, and the Women's March.
1960: Sharpeville Massacre and Langa March: Examining the formation of the PAC, the causes, leaders, events, and consequences of the Sharpeville massacre and Langa march.

Term 4: Turning points in South African History 1976 and 1990

1976: Soweto Uprising: Examining the causes, leaders, events, and consequences of the Soweto Uprising.
1990: Release of Nelson Mandela: Examining the events leading up to the 1994 election, including internal resistance and repression, external pressure, the end of the Cold War, the unbanning of political movements, the release of Mandela, negotiations and violence, and the democratic election.