Social Studies is a content area in which critical thinking can be easily incorporated because you can ask higher order thinking questions to connect concepts/topics across a large time period. Asking students to make connections between one ancient civilization and another is critical thinking; students must take what they know (facts/details about each civilization) and apply it in a new way by thinking about how to compare the two. One area I would utilize to help students become critical thinkers would be an activity to introduce Mesopotamia. I would give students two blank maps with features such as: rivers, mountains, fertile soil, rocky soil, trees etc. and tell them they are starting a civilization on one of these two pieces of land. They must pick a map and draw a blueprint of their future civilization, indicating where homes would be, where they would farm etc. They would also have to explain to the class why they chose their respective map and why they laid out their civilization like they did. We would have a discussion on the factors that influenced their decisions and I would then move onto the lesson about Mesopotamia. I would have the kids use their knowledge from the activity to tell me why, based on the geography, people settled in Mesopotamia. I would use critical thinking/higher order thinking questions to start the lesson rather than have the students apply the concept of settlement in response to geography at the end of the lesson. Students will also be able to apply this idea of settlement based on geography in every unit when a new civilization is introduced, so they would continue to engage in critical thinking.
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