Details
Course Overview
This 4th Grade History course takes students on a journey through the modern world. They will:
- Learn about the Age of Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, and meet Isaac Newton and Benjamin Franklin
- Become familiar with James Madison and American constitutional government, as well as Napoleon in France
- Learn about various revolutions in Latin America
- See how great changes nationalism, industrialism, and imperialism shaped, and sometimes shattered, the modern world, leading to the two world wars
- Study many inventors and innovators who achieved great advances in communication, transportation, medicine, and government
Course Outline
Finding Your Way Around the World
- Maps, Scales, and Finding Our Place
- The Shape of the Land
- Grids Show the Way
Introducing the Modern World: The Scientific Revolution
- What's So Modern About the Modern World?
- William Harvey Gets to the Heart of Things
- What's Under That Microscope?
- A Fly on the Ceiling: The Story of Cartesian Coodinates
- Young Isaac Newton
- A New Kind of Knight
- Curious Ben Franklin
- Diderot's Revolutionary Encyclopedia
Two Democratic Revolutions
- John Locke Spells Out the Laws of Good Government
- Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence
- James Madison and the US Constitution
- George Washington and the American Presidency
- The US Constitution: Three Branches of Government
- The US Constitution: Checks and Balances
- Rumblings of Revolution in France
- Storming the Bastille!
- Farewell, Louis XVI: From Monarchy to Republic
- The Terror
- The Rise of Napoleon
- Washington's Farewell: Stay Out of Europe's Wars
- Napoleon: Lawgiver and Emperor
- Waterloo!
Latin American Revolutions
- Haiti Went First: Toussaint L'Ouverture
- Spanish America and Seeds of Independence
- Miguel Hidalgo: Father of Mexican Independence
- Simón Bolivar: The Liberator
- Liberating the South: San Martin and O'Higgins
The Industrial Revolution
- James Hargreaves and the Spinning Jenny
- James Watt and the Steam Engine
- Fulton and McAdam: A Revolution in Transportation
- Americans Climb Aboard
- The First Factories
- Capitalism and New Wealth
- Charles Dickens: From Boy to Author
- Karl Marx in London
- The Great Exhibition
The Growth of Nations
- A New Kind of Czar: Peter the Great
- Catherine the Great
- Nicholas Nixes Change
- Greece Against the Ottoman Empire
- The New American Nationalism
- One Nation or Two?
- The Civil War Makes One Nation
- Lincoln's Leadership
- The Brothers Grimm in Germany
- Bismark Unites Germany
- Garibaldi Fights for a United Italy
- The Olympics Revived
The Age of Imperialism
- Livingstone and Stanley in Africa
- The French and the Suez Canal
- Rudyard Kipling: Author and Advocate for Empire
- Germany's "Place in the Sun"
To use this course, you'll need a computer with an Internet connection. Some courses require additional free software programs, which you can download from the Internet.
Hardware and Browsers (Minimum Recommendations)
Windows OS
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CPU: 1.8 GHz or faster processor (or equivalent)
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RAM: 1GB of RAM
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Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.0 or higher, Mozilla Firefox 10.0 versions or higher, Chrome 17.0 or higher
- At this time our users are encouraged not to upgrade to Windows 10 or Edge (the new browser)
Mac OS
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CPU: PowerPC G4 1 GHz or faster processor; Intel Core Duo 1.83 GHz or faster processor
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RAM: 1GB of RAM
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Browser: Firefox 10.0 versions or higher, Chrome 17.0 or higher (Safari is not supported!)
Using Mobile Devices with the Online School
Unfortunately, many portable devices do not support the software products required to run the Online School. These devices may include (but not limited to): Chromebooks, iPads, iPhones, iPods, Kindles, eReaders, and Andriod phones.
Internet Connections
It is highly recommended that a broadband connection be used instead of dial up.