Alaska Content Standards

The Alaska Department of Education has adopted the following content standards for high school students in the curriculum areas of English/Language Arts, Geography, Government, and History. This list is not all-inclusive. For further content standards, including those in other disciplines or for other grade levels, go to: www.eed.state.ak.us.

English/Language Arts — Students should be able to:

• Speak and write well for a variety of purposes and audiences.
• Comprehend meaning from written text and oral and visual information.
• Reflect on, analyze, and evaluate a variety of oral, written and visual information.
• Relate what they see, hear and read to their own lives and to the world outside.
• Develop positions based on experience, prior knowledge, and new information.
• Use information and literature of many types and cultures to understand self and others.

Geography — Students should be able to:

• Use maps, globes, and graphs to locate places and regions.
• Know that places have distinctive geographic characteristics.
• Understand how geographic characteristics shape human settlements and cultures.
• Understand that regions are distinct areas defined by cultural or physical features.
• Understand the dynamic and interactive natural forces that shape environments.
• Understand how human activities affect the earth’s environments.

Government and Citizenship — Students should understand:

• The necessity and purpose of government.
• How communities and nations organize their governments.
• The constitutional foundations of the American political system
• The role of law, diversity, dissent, and public opinion and action in American politics.
• The structure of Alaska’s state and local governments.
• The role Alaska Native people have played in the governance of Alaska.
• The role of the United States in international affairs.

Alaska History — Students should understand:

• How their physical environments shaped the culture of indigenous Alaskans.
• The part that physical environment and natural resources played in Alaska’s history.
• When and why Russians came to Alaska and the impact their activities had on indigenous people and on Alaska’s history in general.
• Changes that came about following America’s purchase of Alaska.
• The role that natural resources played in the history and development of Alaska.
• The progress of Alaska from possession to territory to state and its effect on both indigenous people and settlers.
• The role that federal and state governments and big business play in Alaska history.