LEARN NC

K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

Social Studies — Grade 8

Goal 1: The learner will analyze important geographic, political, economic, and social aspects of life in the region prior to the Revolutionary Period.

Objective 1.01. Assess the impact of geography on the settlement and developing economy of the Carolina colony.

Additional related resources

We’re in the process of aligning our content for students to the Standard Course of Study. As we do, you’ll find it here.

Of the inlets and havens of this country
In Colonial North Carolina, page 2.7
Excerpt from John Lawson's 1709 A New Voyage to Carolina detailing the geography of North Carolina's coast. Includes historical commentary and notes about how the coastline has changed since the colonial period.
Format: book/primary source
Commentary and sidebar notes by David Walbert.
Naval stores and the longleaf pine
In Colonial North Carolina, page 6.4
In North Carolina History: A Sampler, page 2.4
North Carolina's extensive longleaf pine forests provided the natural resources needed to produce materials needed to build and maintain ships -- not only timber but tar, pitch, and rosin. These "naval stores" became North Carolina's most important industry in the eighteenth century, but today, the longleaf pine forests are nearly gone.
Format: article
By David Walbert.
The natural history of North Carolina
In Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony, page 1.2
If the five billion years of the earth's history were condensed into a single day, humans would have arrived in North Carolina just two tenths of a second before midnight! This article summarizes the major biological and geological events in North Carolina's history and explains how the land and environment of today came to be.
Format: article
By David Walbert.
Natural diversity
In Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony, page 1.1
North Carolina has within its borders the highest mountains east of the Mississippi River, a broad, low-lying coastal area, and all the land in between. That variety of landforms, elevations, and climates has produced as diverse a range of ecosystems as any state in the United States. It has also influenced the way people have lived in North Carolina for thousands of years.
Format: article
By David Walbert.
The lost landscape of the Piedmont
In Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony, page 5.5
The Piedmont region of North Carolina is unrecognizable compared to the landscape of 400 years ago. Where man-made lakes now sit were huge bottomland forests. While pine trees accounted for only a small percentage of Piedmont acreage, they now dominate the region's forests -- a result of clearing hardwoods to create farmland. Other once-prominent landscapes include areas of grassland known as “Piedmont prairie,” and upland depression swamps where the clay soils often kept moisture on the land’s surface.
Format: article/primary source
A little kingdom in Carolina
In Colonial North Carolina, page 1.3
The original vision for Carolina was a feudal province in which eight "Lords Proprietors" would have nearly royal power, but with an elected assembly and guarantees of religious freedom.
Format: article
By David Walbert.
John White searches for the colonists
In Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony, page 4.6
In this excerpt from the report of his voyage, John White explains how he and the crew of two ships searched for the lost colonists on Roanoke Island but could not find them.
Format: article/primary source
The importance of rice to North Carolina
In Colonial North Carolina, page 6.2
Rice was a very profitable crop in the late 1600s. People in foreign lands were already familiar with it, and it was gaining popularity as a food for the growing slave trade. Rice production helped support North Carolina's economy for many years, relying largely on slave labor. The abolition of slavery marked the beginning of the end of rice plantations in North Carolina.
Format: article
By Keri Towery.
Graveyard of the Atlantic
In Colonial North Carolina, page 2.6
The waters off North Carolina's coast have been called the "Graveyard of the Atlantic" because of the great number of ships that have wrecked there -- thousands since the sixteenth century. Geography, climate, and human activity have all played roles in making this region unusually treacherous to shipping.
Format: article
By David Walbert.
First peoples
In Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony, page 2.1
Beringia was a wide land bridge between Alaska and Siberia that was periodically exposed during the last Great Ice Age. According to a widely-held theory, the first people to live in North America were Asians who followed animal herds across Beringia. The Paleoindians living in North Carolina by 9000 BCE were descendents of these first North Americans. Nobody knows how long it took before the first Paleoindians reached North Carolina, but the few artifacts they left create an image of their past.
Format: article
England's flowering
In Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony, page 4.1
The reign of England's Queen Elizabeth (1558–1603) was marked by a proliferation of the arts, an expansion of private markets, and a dedication to world exploration and privateering.
Format: article

General resources

Aligned lesson plans

Writing activities: William Hilton explores the Cape Fear River
Writing activities suggested to accompany students' reading of a primary source document — a 1663 report by the English explorer William Hilton about the geography and native peoples of the Cape Fear region.
Format: activity/lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
Where do the Lumbee live?
In Teaching about North Carolina American Indians, page 2.8
Introduction Knowing the location of a community, city, state or nation is important. More important, however, is understanding of the personality of the location. Robeson County, home of the Lumbee Tribe, is more than a North Carolina county that...
Format: lesson plan (grade 3–4 and 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)
By Gazelia Carter.
Welcome to the New World
This lesson provides students an opportunity to read and interpret writings of the late 1500's and to transfer the information provided in the writings into a visual medium as a means of understanding and interpretation. The lesson also provides students practice in persuasive techniques.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)
By Barbara Jean.
A visit to colonial North Carolina
This lesson extends student learning about the colonial period in North Carolina history by incorporating primary sources from the Documenting the American South collection. After reading first-hand accounts of travelers to colonial America, students will create their own travel brochure advertising North Carolina.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)
By Meghan Mcglinn.
Understanding North Carolina's Moravian settlers
In this lesson plan, students read a diary written by a young Moravian man traveling from Pennsylvania to a Moravian settlement in North Carolina in 1733. Students complete a graphic organizer with details of the journey and follow the route on a map.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
Understanding Cary's Rebellion
This lesson plan will aid students' comprehension as they read an article about Cary's Rebellion in the North Carolina digital history textbook.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
"Two Worlds" introductory activity
In Two worlds: Educator's guide, page 1.1
Through the use of a carousel brainstorming strategy, this introductory activity for 8th grade social studies enables teachers to discover what their students already know about the geography and history of North Carolina. Students will work cooperatively and will recognize that they have much to learn about their state.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
Turpentine, pitch, rosin, and tar — OR — Can you buy a navy in a naval store?
In this lesson plan, students examine three primary sources related to naval stores and participate in a discussion designed to help them understand the significance of naval stores in colonial North Carolina.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
Topography of North Carolina and its influence on settlement
This lesson explores where North Carolina is in relation to the United States and North America. Also, we will explore the different regions of North Carolina and how the topography of the region affected settlement.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Development and Social Studies)
By Jessica Wilson and Tabitha Horton.
Teaching suggestions: The Tuscarora War
These teaching suggestions will aid students' comprehension as they read an article about the Tuscarora War. Suggestions include a role-play activity with step-by-step instructions and a list of leading discussion questions.
Format: /lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
Teaching suggestions: A Brief Description of the Province of Carolina
Teaching suggestions designed to support students' understanding of a 17th-century primary source document — a pamphlet produced in London at the request of the Lords Proprietors describing the economic opportunity and religious freedom available to settlers in Carolina.
Format: /lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
Teaching suggestions: Graveyard of the Atlantic
Suggested activities for use with the article "Graveyard of the Atlantic," which explains why the waters off North Carolina's coast have been unusually treacherous for shipping.
Format: /lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
Take action, save the past
In Intrigue of the Past, page 5.8
In their study of archaeological resource conservation, students will use a problem-solving model to identify a problem and solve it creatively.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)
Shifting coastlines
In Intrigue of the Past, page 4.3
In their study of North Carolina's changing coastline during the Paleoindian and Archaic periods, students will determine the positions of the coastline at different times and decide what types of archaeological information has been lost due to rising sea levels.
Format: lesson plan (grade 4 and 8 Science and Social Studies)
The regions of North Carolina
In Two worlds: Educator's guide, page 1.2
In this lesson, students analyze the differences between North Carolina's geographical regions: the Mountains, the Piedmont, and the Inner and Outer Coastal Plain.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
Reading guide: A Brief Description of the Province of Carolina
Reading guide designed to aid students' comprehension of a primary source document — a 17th-century pamphlet produced in London describing the economic opportunity and religious freedom available to settlers in Carolina.
Format: worksheet/lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
Reading Amadas and Barlowe
In Two worlds: Educator's guide, page 4.2
In this lesson, students will read about Amadas and Barlowe's 1584 voyage to the Outer Banks, and will practice thinking critically and analyzing primary source documents.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
Provisions for Carolina: Comparing lists
In this lesson, students will compare and contrast two historical documents: A list of recommended provisions for colonists traveling to Virginia in 1622, and a similar list of recommended provisions for colonists traveling to Carolina in 1709. Students will infer what has changed and what has stayed the same between the publication of these two documents.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
"The present state of North Carolina": Making decisions
In this lesson, students read an excerpt from John Lawson's 1709 book A New Voyage to Carolina and use a graphic organizer to decide whether they would have emigrated to Carolina as a result of reading Lawson's book.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
North Carolina's physical and cultural geography
In Two worlds: Educator's guide, page 1.3
In this lesson students will make assumptions about the influence of geography on various aspects of historical human and cultural geography.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.