Indiana standards alignment

• E.2.6

  Covered

  Analyze the earnings of workers in different industries using factors such as product value, worker productivity, and market structure.

  Covered by

  • Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • Tea — The Way of Tea
  • Chocolate — Food of the Gods

  • · Ep 1 · Follow the Money: Bean to Cup
  • · Ep 2 · Who Gets Paid, Tea and Coffee Compared
  • · Ep 3 · The Commodity Trap
  • · Ep 12 · The Jimador's Share
  • · Ep 14 · Pattern 3: Labor Captures the Smallest Share (the smile curve)
  • · Ep 21 · The Smile Curve, Confirmed

  Note: This is the curriculum's spine. Every episode traces who is paid what along one commodity's chain, and the series names the pattern (the smile curve) and tests it across all 21 episodes.

• E.2.5

  Partially covered

  Describe how price elasticity of supply and price elasticity of demand send signals to buyers and sellers.

  Covered by

  • Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • Sugar — The Sweet Revolution

  • · Ep 1 · Price Shocks and Why You Keep Buying
  • · Ep 4 · From Luxury to the Cheapest Calorie

  What we do and don't cover: Partial: price elasticity of DEMAND is taught explicitly and well (coffee's inelastic demand absorbing a ~70% price spike). Price elasticity of SUPPLY is not taught as a named concept.

• GHW.8.1

  Covered

  Use maps to show the location and distribution of Earth's resources, and analyze how this distribution affects trade between and among countries and regions.

  Covered by

  • Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • Tea — The Way of Tea
  • Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • Sugar — The Sweet Revolution
  • Guayusa & Kola Nut — Forest Wisdom
  • Kava — The Root of Peace

  • · The Commodity Map itself, every episode pinned at its origin
  • · The Growing Belts map, production regions by latitude band and country
  • · Ep 1 · The Coffee Belt: Where Coffee Grows and Why
  • · Ep 3 · The Cacao Tree and the Narrowest Belt
  • · Ep 6 · Why Volcanic Soil Only

  Note: This standard is, almost word for word, what the Commodity Map is for.

• GHW.1.2

  Covered

  Analyze agricultural hearths and exchanges of crops among regions. Evaluate the impact of agriculture on the subsequent development of cultural hearths in various regions of the world.

  Covered by

  • Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • Tea — The Way of Tea
  • Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • Sugar — The Sweet Revolution

  • · Ep 1 · The Coffee Belt: Where Coffee Grows and Why
  • · Ep 2 · The Tea Plant and Its Climate Zones
  • · Ep 3 · The Big Producers and the Cacao Varieties
  • · Ep 4 · From New Guinea to the New World

• GHW.12.1

  Covered

  Analyze global climate change forecasts for different parts of Earth and the implications of these changes for humans.

  Covered by

  • Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • Kava — The Root of Peace

  • · Ep 1 · Climate Change Is Redrawing the Map
  • · Ep 3 · A Two-Degree Threat
  • · Ep 6 · Islands Under Pressure
  • · Ep 8 · Beer Geography Is Shifting

• GHW.8.2

  Partially covered

  Prepare graphic representations, such as maps, tables, and timelines, to describe the global movement of goods and services between and among countries and world regions over time. Analyze and assess the patterns and networks of economic interdependence or lack of interdependence.

  Covered by

  • Coffee — The Daily Global Connection

  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option A, map the supply chain of 3 items from your morning routine
  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, Coffee Belt climate report, with maps and data tables

  What we do and don't cover: Partial, and the distinction matters: the curriculum SHOWS these maps everywhere, but this standard asks the STUDENT to prepare them. That student-produced work exists only in the Coffee episode's project, which is the one episode that currently ships a graded assignment.

• 9-10.CC.8

  Covered

  Analyze bias in media through the inclusion or exclusion of information and reliability of the source from visual and verbal messages to achieve a desired result.

  Covered by

  • Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • Tea — The Way of Tea
  • Chocolate — Food of the Gods
  • Sugar — The Sweet Revolution

  • · 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
  • · Spotting Misleading Marketing, Lesson 3 · Weasel words and what the fine print takes back
  • · Spotting Misleading Marketing, Lesson 5 · Fake reviews, astroturfing, and undisclosed #ads

  Note: “Inclusion or exclusion of information” is taught by name: Ep 4 teaches reading for absence, using Jane Austen's silence about where the Mansfield Park sugar money comes from, and the marketing course teaches omission, disclosure, and source reliability as everyday consumer skills.

• 9-10.CC.5

  Partially covered

  Analyze multiple sources of information presented in diverse media and formats while evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source.

  Covered by

  • Coffee — The Daily Global Connection

  • · Ep 19 · Peer Review Versus Press Release
  • · Every course's Sources bibliography, with per-claim verification

  What we do and don't cover: Partial: the curriculum models source evaluation constantly and publishes its own bibliography for students to check. But sustained student-run source evaluation is assessed only in the Coffee project.

• 11-12.CC.8

  Covered

  Analyze the impact of the media on the public, including identifying and analyzing rhetorical and logical fallacies.

  Covered by

  • Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
  • Chocolate — Food of the Gods

  • · Ep 1 · Reading a Coffee Ad
  • · Ep 3 · Reading a Chocolate Ad
  • · Ep 8 · Reading a Craft Beer Label
  • · Ep 15 · Torches of Freedom
  • · Ep 16 · Reefer Madness and the Language of Fear
  • · Ep 18 · Just Say No
  • · Spotting Misleading Marketing, Lesson 8 · Misleading statistics and charts
  • · Spotting Misleading Marketing, Lesson 4 · Fake urgency, fake scarcity, and fake discounts

  Note: A media-literacy lesson recurs in every single episode of the BVC series, and the marketing course adds the consumer-protection half: named persuasion tactics, cherry-picked statistics, and truncated charts.

• 11-12.RC.9

  Partially covered

  Synthesize and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different mediums in order to address a question or solve a problem.

  Covered by

  • Coffee — The Daily Global Connection

  • · Ep 10 · The Oral History That Survived (recovering Nathan “Nearest” Green's erased role)
  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, all four options are 2-3 week research projects requiring synthesis across sources

  What we do and don't cover: Partial: the skill is modelled throughout, but the student is required to perform it only in the Coffee episode's project.

• 11-12.W.1

  Partially covered

  Write arguments in a variety of forms that: a. Introduce precise claim(s), establish the significance of the claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that logically sequences claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence. b. Use rhetorical strategies to enhance the effectiveness of the claim. c. Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly and thoroughly, supplying the most relevant evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both in a manner that anticipates the audience's knowledge level, concerns, values, and possible biases. d. Use effective and varied transitions as well as varied syntax to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships between claim(s) and reasons, between reasons and evidence, and between claim(s) and counterclaims. e. Establish and maintain a consistent style and tone appropriate for the purpose and audience. f. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows and supports the argument presented.

  Covered by

  • Coffee — The Daily Global Connection

  • · 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: Partial: the Coffee project's Option D asks for exactly this (a thesis, primary sources, and a counterargument section addressing the strongest objection). But it is ONE optional project in ONE episode — this is not yet a writing programme, and we will not claim it is.

• 11-12.W.5

  Partially covered

  Conduct more sustained research assignments and tasks to build knowledge about the research process and the topic understudy. a. Formulate an inquiry question and refine and narrow the focus as research evolves. b. Gather relevant information from multiple types of authoritative sources, using advanced searches effectively, and annotate sources. c. Assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the task, purpose, and audience. d. Synthesize and integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas. e. Avoid plagiarism and over reliance on any one source and follow a standard format (e.g., MLA, APA) for citation. f. Present information, choosing from a variety of formats.

  Covered by

  • Coffee — The Daily Global Connection

  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, climate-vulnerability report, 3+ peer-reviewed sources, APA bibliography
  • · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option D, primary-source research paper with an APA bibliography

  What we do and don't cover: Partial, same reason: the project demands a real research process with APA citation, but only the Coffee episode currently ships one.

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 — nothing. This catalog does no mathematics instruction, so it meets no Indiana mathematics standard.
• Science — almost nothing. There is no laboratory work, no investigation and no scientific modelling here. Indiana is not an NGSS state; we checked and claim no Indiana science standard. (Our one partial NGSS claim is for Washington, D.C., where NGSS applies.)
• Most of the U.S. Government standards we checked. USG.1.4 (types of government: monarchy, oligarchy, totalitarianism, anarchy), USG.1.5 (unitary vs confederate vs federal), USG.1.6 (constitutionalism, rule of law, limited government, popular sovereignty as named principles), USG.2.2 (compromise at the Constitutional Convention), USG.2.4-2.6 (founding ideas, civic identity, and civic values as a set), USG.3.1 (the four-part characterization of U.S. government), USG.3.3 (enumerated/implied/DENIED powers in BOTH constitutions — our course teaches enumerated/implied/reserved/concurrent, U.S. only), USG.3.9 (Benjamin Harrison), USG.3.10 (political parties' progression and ideologies), USG.3.13 (media influence on public opinion — our media-literacy course is consumer protection, not political media analysis), all of USG.4 (foreign affairs), and USG.5.8 — the courses do not genuinely teach these, so we do not claim them.
• Indiana Economics has no standard on unions. We checked the 2026 Economics document (and the 2023 edition) for the labor-history courses: Indiana's Economics standards contain no standard on labor unions or collective bargaining, so we cite none. The absence is in the standards, not the lessons.
• USH.8.6 (deindustrialization) for the unions course. The History of Unions reads union decline honestly (PATCO, automation vs. trade) but does not teach the causes and consequences of deindustrialization as such. Close, but not the standard.
• PE performance standards — all of them. Every indicator that asks a student to DEMONSTRATE motor skill, participate, or exhibit behavior during physical activity (all of Standard 1, the participation indicators of Standard 3, and Standard 4's etiquette-in-play) is out of reach of an online course, however good its knowledge content. We claim knowledge-side indicators only.
• Health standards for the marketing course beyond HS.3.1. HS.2.3 (evaluate the effect of media and social media on health behaviors) was considered: Spotting Misleading Marketing evaluates marketing claims about health products, which is HS.3.1's skill, not an analysis of media's effect on health behavior. We claim the one that fits.
• The AI-literacy ladder, the language courses, and Learning How to Learn — deferred, not denied. Indiana's closest frameworks (K-12 Computer Science, World Languages, Employability Skills) have not been fetched and verified yet. Our rule is fetch-or-don't-cite, so these courses carry no Indiana claims this pass. They are queued for a later mapping pass.
• E.4.1, E.4.2, E.3.2, USH.9.3 — the Commodity Map rejections, still rejected. Public goods are never taught; corrective (Pigouvian) taxation is never taught as a policy tool; the four market structures are named, never taught as a unit; and “media in the democratic process” is too thin to stand up. See the source file for the full reasoning.