Students trace one of the biggest turning points in human history — the shift from wandering hunter-gatherers to settled farmers — and see how growing food led to villages, cities, and the first civilizations.
Students will be able to…
For most of history, humans wandered in search of food. What single change let people settle down and build the first cities?
Project this and have students order the steps from nomadic life to the first cities — seeing how each change made the next possible.
Tap any phase to open the teacher moves and student actions.
Humans wandered for 200,000 years — why stop?
Students investigate.
Students analyze.
Students conclude.
Students take action.
Aligned to the C3 Framework for Social Studies and Common Core literacy in history/social studies.
Analyze connections among events and developments in broader historical contexts.
Classify series of historical events as examples of change and/or continuity.
Analyze relationships and interactions within and between human and physical systems.
Identify key steps in a text’s description of a process related to history.
Preview the three formative checks. Tap “Sample answer” to see what mastery looks like — hide them before you print for students.
Have students weigh how the switch to farming both helped humans (steady food, cities) and created new problems (disease, hard labor). A printable T-chart is in the Social Studies library.
Tap a card to flip it, then rate whether you knew it. Built from this lesson’s vocabulary.
A quick self-check with instant feedback, drawn from this lesson’s key terms.
A print-and-go review sheet with a built-in answer key. Tap “Show answer key” to reveal answers, or print the clean version for students.