ElementaryMBA
Illinois standards alignment
Designed for high school. Below is every Illinoisstandard these courses cover: the exact code, the standard's own words, and the lesson that covers it. Where we only cover part of a standard, it says so, and says which part.
- 8
- standards mapped
- 3
- fully covered
- 5
- partially covered
- 4
- frameworks
Read this before you rely on it
- We mapped this ourselves. This alignment was done by ElementaryMBA against the published standards. It has not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by Illinois's education authority or by anyone else.
- Every code was fetched, then transcribed word for word. Each framework below shows the date its codes and text were retrieved from the publisher.
- Standards get revised.A code can be renumbered or its wording changed without notice, and some states publish more than one live edition of the same document. Confirm anything you file against your own jurisdiction's current requirements, using the source links below.
- We would rather claim less. Where the courses only partly cover a standard, this page says partially covered and explains the gap. Standards we considered and could not honestly claim are listed at the bottom, with the reasons.
Filtering by course: Tea — The Way of Tea
Showing 8 standards covered by Tea — The Way of Tea. Clear filters
Illinois · Social Studies
Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — History, High School (SS.H)
Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18
Illinois's History strand is stated as historical-thinking concepts (causation, sources, the struggle for justice) rather than an era survey, which is where the catalog's commodity, labor, civil-rights, and Cold-War history maps.
Read the source document →SS.H.1.9-12
Partially coveredEvaluate how historical developments were shaped by time and place as well as broader historical contexts.
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
- · Ep 1 · Climate Change Is Redrawing the Map
- · Ep 3 · A Two-Degree Threat
- · Ep 10 · Karst Limestone and Bourbon
- · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, assess a producing country's climate viability and defend the assessment
- · Ep 3 · Conquest and the Great Reversal
- · Ep 4 · The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage
- · Ep 11 · The Triangular Trade
- · Ep 12 · Burning the Books (the destruction of the Mesoamerican codices)
- · Ep 15 · From Sacred to Commodity
- · 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
What we do and don't cover: Taught as the series' method — how climate, latitude, and place shaped where commodities grew and what happened there (the Columbian Exchange, the agricultural hearths) — that lens applied to commodity history, not a general survey of causation.
Illinois · Social Studies
Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — Economics and Financial Literacy, High School (SS.EC)
Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18
The BVC series supplies the Economics strand through real commodity markets — scarcity and incentives, market regulation, trade, and globalization. Illinois's Financial Literacy sub-strand (SS.EC.FL) is not taught here; see notClaimed.
Read the source document →SS.EC.5.9-12
Partially coveredAnalyze the ways in which competition and government regulation influence what is produced and distributed in a market system.
Covered by
- Sugar — The Sweet Revolution
- Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
- Tea — The Way of Tea
- Chocolate — Food of the Gods
- · Ep 4 · The Hidden Costs of Cheap Sugar
- · 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
What we do and don't cover: Worked through the U.S. sugar program — how quotas, tariffs, and price supports reshape what is grown, imported, and sold, and who captures the value. One case, not a general treatment of market structure.
SS.EC.9.9-12
Partially coveredAnalyze the role of comparative advantage in global trade of goods and services.
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
- · 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
- · 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
What we do and don't cover: The geography of who produces what and who earns from it is the series' spine (coffee, sugar, chocolate), but comparative advantage as a named formal model is not taught.
Illinois · Social Studies
Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — Geography, High School (SS.G)
Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18
The BVC Commodity Map's climate-and-place, migration, and globalization work maps onto Illinois's human- and environmental-geography standards.
Read the source document →SS.G.8.9-12
CoveredEvaluate how short and long term climate variability impacts human migration and settlement patterns, resource use and land uses.
Covered by
- Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
- Chocolate — Food of the Gods
- Kava — The Root of Peace
- Tea — The Way of Tea
- Sugar — The Sweet Revolution
- Guayusa & Kola Nut — Forest Wisdom
- · Ep 1 · Climate Change Is Redrawing the Map
- · Ep 3 · A Two-Degree Threat
- · Ep 6 · Why Volcanic Soil Only
- · Ep 10 · Karst Limestone and Bourbon
- · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option B, assess a producing country's climate viability and defend the assessment
- · Ep 6 · Islands Under Pressure
- · Ep 8 · Beer Geography Is Shifting
- · 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
Note: This is the Growing Belts map: climate and latitude deciding where each commodity can grow and be settled, and climate change redrawing that map for coffee, cacao, and more.
SS.G.12.9-12
CoveredEvaluate how competition for scarce natural resources contributes to conflict and cooperation within and among countries.
Covered by
- Tea — The Way of Tea
- Guayusa & Kola Nut — Forest Wisdom
- Kava — The Root of Peace
- Chocolate — Food of the Gods
- My Daily Altar — Season Synthesis
- · Ep 17 · The Opium Wars
- · Ep 17 · Lin Zexu's Letter
- · Ep 2 · Who Grows the Tea (colonial and plantation labour)
- · Ep 5 · Whose Knowledge Is It
- · Ep 6 · Kava Governs
- · Ep 20 · The Ban Against the Evidence
- · Ep 3 · Conquest and the Great Reversal
- · Ep 5 · How Coca-Cola Got Its Name (biopiracy)
- · Ep 7 · The Same Story, Six Times
- · Ep 11 · The Debt of Freedom (the 1825 French indemnity and Haiti's modern poverty)
Note: Competition for commodities as a driver of conflict is taught directly — European imperialism run through cash crops, and the Opium Wars fought over trade — with the colonial patterns that outlast them.
SS.G.6.9-12
Partially coveredAnalyze how historical events and the diffusion of ideas, technologies, and cultural practices have influenced migration patterns and the distribution of human population.
Covered by
- Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
- Tea — The Way of Tea
- Chocolate — Food of the Gods
- Sugar — The Sweet Revolution
- · The Great Migration, Lesson 4 · Routes and railroads: the three streams
- · The Great Migration, Lesson 5 · Arrival: Chicago, Detroit, New York, and the Pacific Northwest
- · The Great Migration, Lesson 9 · Faith, family & mutual aid
- · 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
What we do and don't cover: Taught at case depth through the Great Migration — its streams and arrival cities — and the diffusion of crops from their agricultural hearths. Not a general treatment of migration and population.
SS.G.11.9-12
Partially coveredExplain how globalization impacts the cultural, political, economic, and environmental characteristics of a place or region.
Covered by
- Chocolate — Food of the Gods
- My Daily Altar — Season Synthesis
- Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
- Tea — The Way of Tea
- Guayusa & Kola Nut — Forest Wisdom
- · Ep 3 · The Commodity Trap
- · Ep 7 · Who Captures the Value
- · Ep 21 · The Smile Curve, Confirmed
- · Ep 1 · Follow the Money: Bean to Cup
- · Ep 2 · Who Gets Paid, Tea and Coffee Compared
- · Ep 12 · The Jimador's Share
- · Ep 14 · Pattern 3: Labor Captures the Smallest Share (the smile curve)
- · Ep 3 · Conquest and the Great Reversal
- · Ep 5 · How Coca-Cola Got Its Name (biopiracy)
- · Ep 7 · The Same Story, Six Times
- · Ep 11 · The Debt of Freedom (the 1825 French indemnity and Haiti's modern poverty)
What we do and don't cover: Globalization's economic and political imprint on producing regions is taught through commodity case studies — value capture along the chain and the commodity trap — rather than a full four-characteristics analysis.
Illinois · Social Studies
Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science — Inquiry Skills, High School (SS.IS)
Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science, Grades 9-12 (2017) · Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) · retrieved 2026-07-18
Illinois threads Inquiry Skills through every social-science discipline; the catalog's media-literacy method and the Coffee project's sourced research map onto the source-evaluation and evidence standards.
Read the source document →SS.IS.4.9-12
CoveredGather and evaluate information from multiple sources while considering the origin, credibility, point of view, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources.
Covered by
- Coffee — The Daily Global Connection
- Tea — The Way of Tea
- Chocolate — Food of the Gods
- Sugar — The Sweet Revolution
- · 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 1 · Assignment, Option B, 3+ peer-reviewed sources and an APA bibliography
- · Ep 1 · Assignment, Option C, interview ethics: informed consent, right to review
- · 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: Source evaluation — origin, credibility, point of view, corroboration — is modelled in every media-literacy episode and required in the Coffee project's sourced, cited research.
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 Illinois Common Core (Illinois Learning Standards) mathematics standard.
- Science — one partial claim, via the shared NGSS file. Illinois adopted the NGSS verbatim (January 2014) as its science standards, so our one honest science claim — HS-ESS3-1, partial — comes through the shared NGSS mapping with the limit stated on the entry. There is no laboratory work, investigation, or modelling in this catalog, and we will not claim more.
- Financial Literacy (SS.EC.FL) — nothing. Illinois's Economics strand carries a six-standard Financial Literacy sub-strand (income strategies, budgeting, interest and inflation, credit, investing, insurance). This catalog teaches no personal finance, so it claims none of SS.EC.FL.1-6.
- The Illinois Civics flagship's Illinois-specific structure has no Illinois code to cite. Illinois Civics teaches the 1970 Constitution, the plural executive (uniquely both a Comptroller and a Treasurer), the partisan-elected Supreme Court, the uniquely narrow Legislative-Article initiative and the 1980 Cutback Amendment, and one of the nation's strongest home-rule traditions — from Illinois's own official sources. But the 2017 Social Science Standards are DISCIPLINARY CONCEPTS: no standard names a state's structure, so these lessons map only onto the abstract institution and participation standards (SS.CV.1, SS.CV.2, SS.CV.3). The gap is in the standards, not the course.
- Civics standards we checked and rejected. SS.CV.5 (civic dispositions and diverse perspectives as a named concept) and SS.CV.6 (political parties, the media, and public interest groups — our media literacy is consumer protection, not political-media analysis) are not genuinely taught, so we do not claim them.
- The disciplinary standards we read and did not claim. Across History, Economics, and Geography we claim only the concept standards the catalog genuinely teaches. SS.H.2/4/5/6/11/12, SS.EC.2-4/6-8, and SS.G.1-5/7/9/10 were checked and not claimed — the change-and-continuity, market-mechanics, macroeconomic-indicator, mapping-tool, and culture standards are not this catalog's subject. The reject list is the evidence the map was not padded.
See it for yourself
Don't take the mapping on trust. Open the lesson and check it against the standard. Every course publishes its sources too.