Preparation for Teaching History and Social Studies

History (from Greek ἱστορία, historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation") is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory. It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are called historians.

Living organisms including humans are social when they live collectively in interacting populations, whether they are aware of it, and whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary.

In the United States Education system, social studies is the integrated study of multiple fields of social science and the humanities, including history, geography, and political science. The term was first coined by American educators around the turn of the twentieth century as a catch-all for the above-mentioned subjects, as well as other subjects which did not fit into the traditional models of lower education in the United States, such as philosophy, and psychology.