deutsche Version 

Information about the Social Studies Department

In comprehensive schools in Lower Saxony social studies is taught from grade 5 till grade 10.

In the grades 11-13 the subjects history, geography, and politics&economics are taught separately, in order to introduce the pupils to the methods of the academic disciplines.

The subject “social studies“ outlines the different procedures of society

• in families and schools
• in communities
• in the different countries, like the Federal Republic of Germany, for example
• in Europe and in the world

in their contexts.

In social studies the three subjects geography (place), history (time), and politics&economics (society) are included.

Looking at the historic backgrounds, the geographic conditions, the economic interests, and the politic consequences highlights the development of the society. A group of pupils tried to point this out with the example of Christopher Columbus. Have a look!

“Society“ – What is that? – presented by pupils

To have a look, just click on the illustration on the left.

The IGL book, published by Klett, was one of the first school books to support the combination of the subjects history, geography, and social studies, according to the curricula of the subject social studies. We used it over many years.

Then we have decided on using ”Kerncurriculum Gesellschaftslehre“ (=“core curricula for social studies“), a more modern school book, which focuses on conveying subject-specific skills.

In the school year of 2009/2010 we have introduced the school book “Entdecken und Verstehen” (=”Discovering and Understanding”) published by Cornelsen.

In the grades 5-10 we use the atlas “Diercke Drei“ by Westermann, which provides us with the cartographic material for the subjects geography, history, and politics&economics.

Download the curricula (pdf, german):

• 5th grade
• 6th grade
• 7th grade
• 8th grade
• 9th grade
• 10th grade
• 11th grade
• grade 12/13

In the grades 11-13 we are using the following history books:

• grade 11: „Von den Anfängen der Demokratie bis zum Zeitalter der bürgerlichen Revolution“ (= “From the beginning of democracy till the time of the civil revolution”)
• grade 12: „Deutsche Geschichte zwischen 1800 und 1933“ (= “German history between 1800 and 1933“)
• grade 13: „Vom Zweiten Weltkrieg bis zur Gegenwart“ (= “From World War II till today“)

all published by Buchner. For the subject “geography“ we use “Fundamente“ (= “Foundations“), published by Klett. In history, geography, and politics&economics we also work with magazines about the key topics of the centralized Abitur exams (A-Levels). The pupils use the current issue of the Diercke atlas.