Possible Applications of a Unit on the Holocaust to the Colorado Model Content Standards
A Color Key: Blue:  A link to the USHMM teacher’s guide web page. Black: Directly quoting a state’s social studies standard. Red:  The correlation of studying the Holocaust to the standards. Brown:  Other information.		If a secondary teacher would decide to teach a unit on the Holocaust, it would be highly recommended to first read "Guidelines for Teaching about the Holocaust" created by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum which can be found at <http://www.ushmm.org/education/foreducators/>

From the Introduction of the Colorado Model Content Standards for History:
The Council adopted the position that history and geography provide the frameworks of time and place on which the concepts of the other social studies disciplines can be organized. The identification of separate standards for history, geography, and civics is in no way intended to specify that the content be taught in that manner. Rather, history and geography should be seen as broadly integrative subjects that serve as the essential links among the social studies. This perspective empowers educators to make professional choices about when to address the discrete pieces of individual disciplines and when integration is most appropriate.

The attitude reflected in this paragraph of the Introduction would also indicate that a professional teacher could justify an extended course in the Holocaust if it in fact it does cover many of the stated standards.

Standard 1: Students understand the chronological organization of history and know how to organize events and people in major eras to identify and explain historical relationships.

    In the Grades 9-12 listings of major eras, World War II and the World in the Contemporary Era would be seen in the Holocaust. Understanding and use of chronology is a must in the study of the Holocaust. Cause and effect relationships are to be studied as the move to the death camps of the mid war years. Cause and effect relationships are to be shown as complex and not over simplified, especially with a study of the Holocaust.

Standard 2: Students know how to use the processes and resources of historical inquiry.

    In the Grades 9-12 listings a teacher has opportunity to provide students with many sources that are readily available. Most important are the primary sources of testimony of the survivors, whether a survivor in the area or survivors on video or audio tape. The teacher then has the opportunity impart to students as to how to use this information in processing the story of the Holocaust. Historical context of these stories is of extreme importance. The secondary sources of historians' interpretations of the Holocaust are also readily available. These interpretations can be the beginnings of interpretation by the students themselves. The primary and secondary sources available that tell the story of the Holocaust can lead the students to comparing and judging reliability of sources, of evaluating bias, of comparing and contrasting reliability of information.

Standard 3: Students understand that societies are diverse and have changed over time.

    In the listings for Grades 9-12 a study of the Holocaust can lead to the long history of Judaism and Christianity and the relationship between the two. The changes that occurred from the end of the Roman world to the Middle Ages to the Modern world. The anti-Semitism that developed and then went beyond what one would think in the 1930s and 1940s. Specific development of the Jewish culture of eastern Europe into the twentieth century and its contributions to the society around it would be part of this standard. Destruction of this culture would be part of this standard.

Standard 4: Students understand how science, technology, and economic activity have developed, changed, and affected societies throughout history.

    Specific study of the Holocaust under this standard leads to many areas. Science misused by the Nazi regime, the industrial mass murder created and carried out, the economy of a regime intent on genocide while carrying on a war. Comparison of this type of society to that of what is expected of a society that students are being prepared to enter is necessary.

Standard 5: Students understand political institutions and theories that have developed and changed over time.

    With knowledge of western democratic ideas and ideals, students should be given the contrast of the political institutions and theory of the Nazi regime to see what the antithesis of what they are preparing for as adults looks like. What brought this Nazi regime into being must be analyzed. How this regime used ideology to justify mass murder must be analyzed.

    A teacher has wide open opportunity to explore with students all religious questions, all philosophical ideas and ideals that came into force with the story of the Holocaust.