Iowa standards alignment

• SS.9-12.Gov.18

  Covered

  Identify the function, duties, and authority of the government of the state of Iowa.

  Covered by

  • Iowa Civics: How Your State Government Works

  • · Iowa Civics, Lesson 3 · The executive and the General Assembly
  • · Iowa Civics, Lesson 4 · How a bill becomes law, local government, and getting involved

  Note: The flagship's primary home: Iowa's own state government — the Constitution of 1857, the plural executive (Governor and Lieutenant Governor on a joint ticket, plus a separately elected Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer, Auditor, and Secretary of Agriculture), the General Assembly (100-member House, 50-member Senate), and the merit-selection-plus-retention judiciary (the 7-justice Iowa Supreme Court) — is taught in depth.

• SS.9-12.Gov.20

  Covered

  Identify the functions and organizational structures of Iowa's local governments.

  Covered by

  • Iowa Civics: How Your State Government Works
  • US, State & Local Government: Who Does What

  • · Iowa Civics, Lesson 4 · How a bill becomes law, local government, and getting involved
  • · US, State & Local Government, Lesson 5 · What LOCAL government handles (and why it VARIES)
  • · US, State & Local Government, Lesson 7 · The governments you forget: special districts & boards

  Note: Near-1:1: Iowa's 99 counties (elected boards of supervisors and other county officials), cities under home rule, townships, special districts, and locally run school boards are each taught, along with how to take part at each level.

• SS.9-12.Gov.13

  Covered

  Analyze the electoral process and election systems in the United States, specifically Iowa election law including registration requirements, paper ballots, and absentee voting.

  Covered by

  • Iowa Civics: How Your State Government Works
  • Voting & Elections 101

  • · Iowa Civics, Lesson 1 · The Iowa caucuses: going first in presidential politics
  • · Iowa Civics, Lesson 2 · Iowa's nonpartisan redistricting: a national model
  • · Iowa Civics, Lesson 4 · How a bill becomes law, local government, and getting involved
  • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 4 · The Electoral College: how it works
  • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 5 · Why the Electoral College exists
  • · Voting & Elections 101, Lessons 1-3 · registration, primaries and caucuses, how you vote
  • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 7 · Counting, canvassing, and certifying the vote
  • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 8 · Verify your own registration and rules
  • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 1 · Registering to vote

  Note: The flagship's most distinctive material lands here: the Iowa Caucuses (named in the standard's clarification), Iowa's registration, absentee/early-voting, and county-auditor administration, and — under the standard's redistricting clarification — Iowa's nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency maps, a national anti-gerrymandering model. The Electoral College and the general registration/primary/count mechanics are taught in the general voting courses.

• SS.9-12.Gov.4

  Covered

  Analyze the underlying principles established by the United States Constitution.

  Covered by

  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government
  • State vs Federal Power: How American Government Is Divided

  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 6 · Separation of powers and checks & balances
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 7 · Federalism: state and federal power
  • · US Constitution 101, Lessons 2-9 · the Constitution analyzed article by article
  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 1 · What is federalism, and why split power at all?
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 2 · The Preamble: who, and why
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 9 · Changing the Constitution: Article V and key later amendments

  Note: The rule of law, checks and balances, federalism, limited government, popular sovereignty, republicanism, separation of powers, and the power to amend — the principles the standard lists — are taught directly through the Constitution course.

• SS.9-12.Gov.6

  Covered

  Analyze the function, duties, and authority of the legislative branch, including the process of lawmaking and the power of the purse.

  Covered by

  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government
  • How a Bill Becomes Law (Federal): From Idea to Public Law
  • US Civics 101: How American Government Works

  • · US Constitution 101, Lessons 3-6 · Articles I-III and checks & balances
  • · How a Bill Becomes Law (Federal) · the whole course, introduction to public law
  • · US Civics 101, Lesson 3 · How a bill becomes a law
  • · US Civics 101, Lesson 1 · Purpose of government and the three branches

  Note: Article I's structure and how a bill becomes law — introduction, committee review, floor votes in both chambers, and presidential action — are taught end to end.

• SS.9-12.Gov.8

  Covered

  Analyze the function, duties, and authority of the judicial branch, including the power of judicial review and interpretation of laws.

  Covered by

  • The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch
  • US Civics 101: How American Government Works
  • The Bill of Rights: Know Your Rights

  • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 1 · The federal judiciary: from district courts to the Supreme Court
  • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 7 · Checks on the Court
  • · US Civics 101, Lesson 4 · The courts and judicial review (Marbury v. Madison)
  • · The Supreme Court & the Judicial Branch, Lesson 2 · How a judge gets there: nomination and confirmation
  • · Know Your Rights, Lessons 2-5 · speech, religion, press, assembly, including at school and online
  • · Know Your Rights, Lessons 6-8 · the 4th Amendment: searches, stops, and your digital life

  Note: The federal judiciary's structure, the nomination-and-confirmation process, judicial review through Marbury v. Madison, and landmark rights cases are each taught by name.

• SS.9-12.Gov.9

  Covered

  Assess how the United States federal system divides powers between national and state governments.

  Covered by

  • State vs Federal Power: How American Government Is Divided
  • Iowa Civics: How Your State Government Works

  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 1 · What is federalism, and why split power at all?
  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 2 · Three kinds of power: enumerated, implied, reserved
  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 3 · The enumerated powers: Article I, § 8 (the Necessary and Proper Clause)
  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 6 · Concurrent powers: what both levels share
  • · State vs Federal Power, Lesson 7 · McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): implied powers and supremacy
  • · Iowa Civics, Lesson 3 · The executive and the General Assembly
  • · Iowa Civics, Lesson 4 · How a bill becomes law, local government, and getting involved

  Note: Federalism and the enumerated/implied/reserved powers taxonomy are taught directly, and the standard's state-and-local functions are taught as Iowa's own (the state government and the 99-county/city/school-board layer).

• SS.9-12.Gov.10

  Covered

  Analyze the basic requirements and responsibilities to serve in public office.

  Covered by

  • How to Run for Office: A Practical, Non-Partisan Guide

  • · How to Run for Office · the whole course (eligibility, ballot access, money rules, and after Election Day)

  Note: Eligibility, ballot access, terms, and the money rules the standard lists are taught end to end in the running-for-office course.

• SS.9-12.3

  Covered

  Gather relevant information from multiple sources representing a wide range of views while using the origin, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources to guide the selection.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution
  • BVC: Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • BVC: Guayusa & Kola Nut — Forest Wisdom

  • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
  • · Every course's Sources bibliography, with per-claim verification
  • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story, Beckford (1790) against Equiano (1789) and Mary Prince (1831) on the same plantation world
  • · Ep 3 · Two Ways of Seeing a Bean
  • · Ep 5 · Two Ways of Knowing
  • · Ep 18 · Whose Voice
  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, 3+ peer-reviewed sources and an APA bibliography
  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option C, interview ethics: informed consent, right to review

  Note: Gathering from multiple sources and weighing each by origin, authority, context, and corroboration — the standard's exact skill — is the source-evaluation method run across the catalog, with a checkable bibliography published each time.

• SS.9-12.4

  Covered

  Evaluate the purpose and credibility of sources by examining how experts view the source.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • BVC: Tea — The Way of Tea
  • BVC: Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution
  • Spotting Misleading Marketing

  • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
  • · Every course's Sources bibliography, with per-claim verification
  • · Ep 1 · Reading a Coffee Ad
  • · Ep 2 · Reading a Tea Ad
  • · Ep 3 · Reading a Chocolate Ad
  • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story (reading a text for what it leaves out)
  • · Ep 11 · Tiki and the Tropical Paradise
  • · Ep 15 · The Language of Doubt
  • · Ep 15 · Doubt Is Our Product
  • · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence (the UK banning khat against its own scientific advice)
  • · Spotting Misleading Marketing, Lesson 8 · Misleading statistics and charts
  • · Spotting Misleading Marketing, Lesson 4 · Fake urgency, fake scarcity, and fake discounts

  Note: Near-1:1 with the catalog's method: the standard's clarification (purpose taxonomy — inform/persuade/sell/propaganda — lateral reading, and filter bubbles) is the media-literacy skill run in every episode, reading each source and message for credibility, bias, and omission.

• SS.9-12.Gov.3

  Partially covered

  Analyze important founding and historical documents to the United States and the State of Iowa.

  Covered by

  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government

  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 1 · Why a constitution? From the Articles of Confederation
  • · US Constitution 101, Lessons 2-9 · the Constitution analyzed article by article
  • · US Constitution 101, Lesson 8 · The Bill of Rights (Amendments I to X)

  What we do and don't cover: The Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are taught article by article, and the Iowa Constitution of 1857 is taught in the flagship; the standard's other named documents (Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers) are not taught by name, so this is partial.

• SS.9-12.Gov.7

  Partially covered

  Analyze the function, duties, and authority of the executive branch, including the scope of presidential powers, executive orders, executive agreements, and the president's role in foreign and domestic policy.

  Covered by

  • US Civics 101: How American Government Works
  • US Constitution 101: The Document That Builds the Government
  • Voting & Elections 101

  • · US Civics 101, Lesson 1 · Purpose of government and the three branches
  • · US Constitution 101, Lessons 3-6 · Articles I-III and checks & balances
  • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 4 · The Electoral College: how it works
  • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 5 · Why the Electoral College exists

  What we do and don't cover: Article II's executive role and the Electoral College are taught; the standard's executive orders, executive agreements, the federal bureaucracy's structure, and the president's foreign-policy role are not a dedicated unit, so this is partial.

• SS.9-12.Gov.14

  Partially covered

  Analyze the role of citizens in the U.S. political system, with attention to the definition of who is a citizen, the expansion of that definition over time.

  Covered by

  • Citizenship & Naturalization Basics

  • · Citizenship & Naturalization Basics, Lesson 1 · Who is a U.S. citizen? Birthright and the 14th Amendment
  • · Citizenship & Naturalization Basics, Lesson 3 · Becoming a citizen: naturalization eligibility

  What we do and don't cover: Who is a citizen — the 14th Amendment, birthright citizenship, and naturalization eligibility — is taught directly; a systematic history of the expansion of citizenship over time is not a dedicated unit, so this is partial.

• SS.9-12.Gov.17

  Partially covered

  Analyze the rights, liberties, duties, and responsibilities of citizens of the United States and the state of Iowa.

  Covered by

  • Citizenship & Naturalization Basics
  • Jury Duty & the Courts (the citizen's side)
  • Voting & Elections 101
  • The Bill of Rights: Know Your Rights
  • Iowa Civics: How Your State Government Works

  • · Citizenship & Naturalization Basics, Lesson 7 · Rights and responsibilities of citizenship
  • · Jury Duty & the Courts · the whole course (the citizen's side of the court system)
  • · Voting & Elections 101, Lesson 1 · Registering to vote
  • · Know Your Rights, Lessons 2-5 · speech, religion, press, assembly, including at school and online
  • · Know Your Rights, Lessons 6-8 · the 4th Amendment: searches, stops, and your digital life
  • · Iowa Civics, Lesson 4 · How a bill becomes law, local government, and getting involved

  What we do and don't cover: The rights and liberties in the Bill of Rights, the duty of jury service, the right to vote (including Iowa's own rules), and contacting a government official are each taught; the standard's Selective Service registration duty is not, so this is partial.

• SS.9-12.5

  Partially covered

  Refine claims and counterclaims that are supported with relevant, credible evidence gathered through research and investigation.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coffee — The Daily Global Connection

  • · Ep 15 · Doubt Is Our Product
  • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
  • · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence (the UK banning khat against its own scientific advice)
  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option D, a 1,200-1,500 word research paper with a required counterargument section

  What we do and don't cover: Evaluating claims and their evidence is taught throughout; a refined claim-and-counterclaim product supported by researched evidence ships as a graded assignment only in the Coffee episode, so this is partial.

• SS.9-12.7

  Partially covered

  Construct clear and coherent arguments that support a specific claim, using relevant evidence and reasoning from multiple credible sources to substantiate the claim.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coffee — The Daily Global Connection

  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, all four options are 2-3 week research projects requiring synthesis across sources
  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, 3+ peer-reviewed sources and an APA bibliography
  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option C, interview ethics: informed consent, right to review

  What we do and don't cover: Constructing an argument that synthesizes multiple credible sources is taught, but ships as a graded argument product only in the Coffee episode, so this is partial.

• SS.9-12.8

  Partially covered

  Apply a range of deliberative and democratic strategies and procedures to make decisions and engage in their classrooms, schools, and communities.

  Covered by

  • US, State & Local Government: Who Does What
  • Iowa Civics: How Your State Government Works

  • · US, State & Local Government, Lesson 8 · Where to show up and be heard, at every level
  • · Iowa Civics, Lesson 4 · How a bill becomes law, local government, and getting involved
  • · Ep 15 · Doubt Is Our Product
  • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
  • · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence (the UK banning khat against its own scientific advice)

  What we do and don't cover: The standard's civic-engagement clarification (a healthy news diet of multiple credible sources, the impact of misinformation, and showing up where issues are decided) is taught as practice — Iowa's own levers (caucus, county boards, contacting Des Moines legislators, running locally); the designed graded deliberation is prompted, not run as an assignment, so this is partial.

• RH.11-12.6

  Covered

  Evaluate authors' differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors' claims, reasoning, and evidence.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution
  • BVC: Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • BVC: Guayusa & Kola Nut — Forest Wisdom

  • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story, Beckford (1790) against Equiano (1789) and Mary Prince (1831) on the same plantation world
  • · Ep 3 · Two Ways of Seeing a Bean
  • · Ep 5 · Two Ways of Knowing
  • · Ep 18 · Whose Voice

  Note: The strongest single alignment on this page. Ep 4 puts a planter's euphemism and passive voice directly against two first-person accounts by formerly enslaved writers, and teaches the student to assess each author's claims, reasoning, and evidence. Iowa's text is verbatim identical to the Common Core code.

• RH.11-12.9

  Covered

  Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution

  • · Ep 10 · The Oral History That Survived (recovering Nathan “Nearest” Green's erased role)
  • · Ep 4 · Whose Voice Tells the Story

  Note: “Noting discrepancies among sources” is the whole point of the Nathan Green lesson: the documentary record and the oral record disagree, and the episode teaches why oral history is a legitimate scholarly method for resolving that. Iowa's text is verbatim identical to the Common Core code.

• RI.11-12.6

  Covered

  Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness, or artistry of the text.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Sugar — The Sweet Revolution

  • · Ep 4 · Blood-Sweetened Luxury
  • · Ep 15 · Torches of Freedom
  • · Ep 17 · Lin Zexu's Letter
  • · Ep 16 · Three Sentences, Three Policies

  Note: IOWA-REVISED wording: Iowa ends this standard “…power, persuasiveness, or artistry of the text,” where the Common Core reads “…or beauty of the text.” Transcribed from Iowa's own 2024 document — this divergence is why the shared Common Core file is not aliased here.

• WHST.11-12.7

  Partially covered

  Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coffee — The Daily Global Connection

  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, all four options are 2-3 week research projects requiring synthesis across sources

  What we do and don't cover: Partial: only the Coffee episode currently ships a graded research assignment. Where it runs, it meets this standard squarely.

• WHST.11-12.8

  Partially covered

  Gather relevant information from multiple credible primary and secondary print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the specific task, purpose, and audience, including recognition of bias; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance on any one source and following a standard format for citation.

  Covered by

  • BVC: Coffee — The Daily Global Connection

  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, 3+ peer-reviewed sources and an APA bibliography
  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option C, interview ethics: informed consent, right to review
  • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
  • · Every course's Sources bibliography, with per-claim verification

  What we do and don't cover: IOWA-REVISED wording: Iowa says “multiple credible primary and secondary print and digital sources… including recognition of bias,” where the Common Core reads “multiple authoritative… sources” without the bias clause. The bias clause maps well to the catalog's source-evaluation method; the graded gathering-and-citing product ships only in the Coffee episode, so this is partial. This divergence is why the shared Common Core file is not aliased here.

What we don't claim

A standards page is only worth reading if the omissions are honest too. We looked at these and left them out:

• Mathematics — Common Core adopted as the Iowa Core: nothing claimed. Iowa adopted the Common Core State Standards for mathematics as the Iowa Core, but this catalog does no mathematics instruction, so it meets no Iowa mathematics standard. One nuance: Iowa's own Civics/Government standard SS.9-12.Gov.13 cross-references two statistics codes — A1.S-ID.C.9 (“Distinguish between correlation and causation”) and ST.S-IC.B.6 (“Evaluate reports based on data”) — that lightly touch the catalog's misleading-statistics media literacy. But the catalog does no mathematics instruction and does not run the statistical analysis those codes require, so we do not claim them.
• Science — NGSS-BASED (Iowa was a 2015 Lead State) but with documented Iowa revisions: deferred. Iowa's State Board of Education adopted the Next Generation Science Standards in August 2015, having helped write them as a Lead State Partner. But Iowa's science standards have documented later revisions (notably to climate-related expectations), so — unlike Michigan, which adopted the NGSS verbatim and reuses the shared NGSS mapping — we could not confirm within this pass that Iowa's HS-ESS3-1 (the one climate/resource expectation this catalog could touch) is a byte-for-byte NGSS republication. Our rule is verbatim-or-nothing, so we do NOT alias the shared NGSS framework here and DEFER Iowa's science standards rather than cite text we have not cleanly verified. The catalog's climate/resource content (resources, hazards, and climate shaping human activity) would map to Iowa's Earth and Space Science standards; that is deferred, not denied.
• English/Language Arts — Common-Core-derived but Iowa revised, so NOT aliased. Iowa adopted the Common Core for ELA as the Iowa Core, but the current (2024) Iowa Academic Standards for English Language Arts revised some codes. Of the six literacy codes this catalog touches, RH.11-12.6/8/9 are verbatim identical to the shared Common Core file, but RI.11-12.6 (“…or artistry of the text” vs Common Core's “…or beauty of the text”) and WHST.11-12.8 (“multiple credible primary and secondary… including recognition of bias” vs Common Core's “multiple authoritative… sources”) are Iowa's own revised wording. Because two of the six diverge, we do not alias the shared Common Core ELA framework — that would misrepresent Iowa's revised codes as verbatim Common Core. We instead transcribe Iowa's own verbatim literacy standards in the ia-literacy framework above.
• Iowa's caucuses, nonpartisan redistricting, and Missouri-Plan judiciary have no discrete benchmark. The flagship teaches the Iowa Caucuses, Iowa's nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency redistricting, and its merit-selection-plus-retention judiciary as headline features. The Iowa Caucuses are named only in the clarification of SS.9-12.Gov.13, and redistricting/gerrymandering appear only in that standard's “May include” list; the Missouri-Plan judiciary sits inside SS.9-12.Gov.18 (the state government) rather than as a benchmark of its own. So they are claimed through Gov.13 and Gov.18 rather than as standards in their own right.
• The sovereign Meskwaki Nation tribal government (SS.9-12.Gov.19). Iowa's Civics/Government course carries a dedicated benchmark on the sovereign Meskwaki Nation's tribal government — the Meskwaki Tribal Constitution, Council, and Court, and the Settlement's status as privately purchased land rather than a federal reservation. Iowa Civics teaches Iowa's state and local structure but not tribal government, so SS.9-12.Gov.19 is not claimed. The gap is in the course, not the standards.
• The political-science and civic-virtue benchmarks we checked and rejected. SS.9-12.Gov.1 (origins of government and alternative systems, including crimes against humanity by communist regimes), SS.9-12.Gov.2 (Enlightenment philosophers and the Federalist/Anti-Federalist Papers as named content), SS.9-12.Gov.5 (government's role in maintaining order through safety/morality/health laws), SS.9-12.Gov.11 (patterns of political action and activism), SS.9-12.Gov.12 (intermediary institutions — interest groups, parties, media, campaigns, political socialization), SS.9-12.Gov.15 (biographies of exemplary Iowans and Americans who promoted civic virtue), SS.9-12.Gov.16 (civic virtue as a named concept), and the inquiry-mechanics anchors SS.9-12.1, SS.9-12.2, and SS.9-12.6 (developing compelling/supporting questions and constructing sequenced responses) — the courses do not genuinely teach these, or teach them too thinly to claim, so we do not claim them.