Assess students' ability to apply knowledge of geographic features (rivers, floodplains, climate, and natural barriers) and resource distribution (water, fertile soil, minerals, trade routes) to explain why Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and the Huang He developed where they did. Tasks: locate key features on a map, compare how each river influenced agriculture and settlement, explain connections between resources and social/political systems (e.g., irrigation, flood control, trade), and predict how changes in geography or resource availability would have affected each civilization.