1. To: ACHS Freshmen Humanities 9 students
From: ACMS 6th Grade Teachers
Re: Websites for 6th grade social studies
We want to congratulate you on completing your first semester of high school. You have worked hard
to get to this point, and we commend you on your hard work! It seems like just yesterday that most of
you were students in our 6th grade social studies classes here at American Canyon Middle School.
We are writing to you to ask for your help with our 6th grade social studies curriculum. This year 6th
grade students, much like you, will be exploring the transition from Paleolithic hunting and gathering
lifeways to Neolithic farming. Like you, they will be learning about causes of this “Neolithic Revolution”
and the impact it had on ordinary people’s lives. Like you, they will be learning how the development of
agriculture gave rise to agrarian civilizations in Mesopotamia, China, India, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and
Mesoamerica.
Our students are most interested to know your answer to this question, “Was life in agrarian societies
better than life in hunter-gatherer societies?” We would like you to create engaging, interactive
websites that answer this question using information from The Big History website and the novel
Walkabout, by James Vance Marshall.
In your website, please include answers to these questions:
● Where, how, and why did agriculture first begin, and what was its impact?
● Where and why did the first cities appear, and what was their impact?
● How and why did cities evolve into agrarian civilizations?
● How were agrarian civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Jericho, China, India, Egypt, Greece,
Rome, and Mesoamerica similar and different from one another?
● What were advantages and disadvantages of life in these agrarian civilizations?
● What are the advantages and disadvantages of foraging (hunter-gatherer) lifeways as depicted
in the novel Walkabout?
● Was life in agrarian societies better than life in hunter-gatherer societies?
Please make your websites as creative and interactive as possible with text, photos, games, animations,
quizzes that would be interesting to 6th graders.
We hope to be able to share your webpages with our students by Friday, March 22. Good Luck!
Ms. Keller, Ms. Zuniga, Ms. Tighe
American Canyon Middle School 6th Grade Social Studies Teachers