Social Studies Subject Overview
The Hershey High School Social Studies Department aims to guide students in developing historical thinking skills, geographic and cultural experience and knowledge, and an understanding of the decisive role of critical thought and tolerance as 21st century global citizens.
In order to provide a more seamless transition from 8th grade Social Studies at the Middle School to 9th grade at the High School, the Social Studies Department is shifting the order of courses over the next few years. Despite the shift, all students will continue to study all of our present required courses, just in a slightly different order. Most notably, Civics will be moving from 9th grade to 11th grade, and American History will be moving from 11th grade to 9th grade. 9th grade American History, which involves American History since the Industrial Revolution, will therefore be an extension of 8th grade American History, which involves American History before the Industrial Revolution.
As shown in the table below, beginning in the 2024-2025 school year, 9th graders will have American History as their required course. American History 9 (the 9th grade version) and American History 11 (the 11th grade version), will both involve the same period of American history, but at two different grade levels. All students, by 11th grade, will have taken some combination of Civics, World History, and American History.
In order to provide a more seamless transition from 8th grade Social Studies at the Middle School to 9th grade at the High School, the Social Studies Department is shifting the order of courses over the next few years. Despite the shift, all students will continue to study all of our present required courses, just in a slightly different order. Most notably, Civics will be moving from 9th grade to 11th grade, and American History will be moving from 11th grade to 9th grade. 9th grade American History, which involves American History since the Industrial Revolution, will therefore be an extension of 8th grade American History, which involves American History before the Industrial Revolution.
As shown in the table below, beginning in the 2024-2025 school year, 9th graders will have American History as their required course. American History 9 (the 9th grade version) and American History 11 (the 11th grade version), will both involve the same period of American history, but at two different grade levels. All students, by 11th grade, will have taken some combination of Civics, World History, and American History.
As an example, a 9th grader in the 2023-2024 school year will take American History 9. In their 10th grade year (2024-2025), they will take World History, and in their 11th grade year (2025-2026), they will take Civics. Students who are 10th and 11th graders in the 2023-2024 school year will continue the normal progression of courses.
The following is a brief overview of the course topics for the 2023-2024 School Year:
The following is a brief overview of the course topics for the 2023-2024 School Year:
- In 9th grade American History, students learn what it means to be an American, how Americans have responded to challenges, and how American democracy has failed and succeeded.
- In 10th grade World History, students learn how the changing relationship between human beings and the physical and natural environment affected human life from early times to the present, why relations among humans have been so complex since early times, and how human views of the world, nature, and the cosmos have changed.
- In 11th grade American History, students learn what it means to be an American, how Americans have responded to challenges, and how American democracy has failed and succeeded.
- From the eleventh grade on, students may also choose to take Money and Power, a course that fuses political science with economics; Law and Society, which fuses law and sociology; and Psychology, in which students investigate the science and study of the human mind.
- Advanced Placement classes in the Social Studies Department include AP Human Geography, an intensive study of the history and science of the human inhabitation of the planet; AP US History, an intensive study of all of American history; and AP European History, an intensive study of European history since the High Middle Ages; and AP Psychology, an intensive study of the human mind.