Current (CURRENT) Events: The ISIS Threat

In less than two hours, President Obama will address the United States public about the current situation in the Middle East and present what White House officials have cited as a "comprehensive plan" for how the U.S. and its allies will address the ISIS threat. The subject has tremendous relevance to the American public and many teachers see it as an opportunity to help their students learn more about this very current event--if they only had time to develop a lesson with more depth than simply reading or watching news accounts.

I have found the Choices Program out of Brown University to be tremendously helpful with these types of topics. (I highlighted some of their government curriculum in a previous post.) So far, I have only taken advantage of their free materials and am signed up for their email notifications, which included yesterday's link to a free lesson plan, "ISIS: A New Threat." I've only had a brief chance to look at this free material; however, I consider it an invaluable resource for teachers because it at least gives them a starting point for bringing in such a current event immediately into their classroom.

Curriculum from Choices Program

Teaching Current Events? There's a (GIS) Map for That...

I continue to be amazed with the amount of (free) resources available for introducing students to (and engaging them with) GIS. If you want a quick overview of what GIS is and how it relates to geography, consider this video. You can also click on the "GIS" tag/label to find my other entries on this topic.

ESRI's Storytelling Maps page

Storytelling with Maps
I was recently introduced to a few ESRI resources that help students learn about past and current events through maps and GIS data. An excellent resource is ESRI's Storytelling with Maps. There, you can explore topics ranging from Fracking /Shale Gas Boom to The Real Pirates of the Caribbean to Health Care. You can even explore costs by state under the Federal Healthcare Exchanges initiative (i.e., Affordable Care Act/Obamacare). Exploring these topics digitally through time and space is a great opportunity for students to begin learning how to interpret data and maps.

ESRI's Time and Place Module: Indian Removal Act of 1830

Additional Resources
ESRI also has some additional resources worth mentioning. Their "Time and Place" modules include topics such as the Dust Bowl and the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Students are provided maps and documents as a way to integrate information from a variety of sources to form an argument. (Notice the potential Common Core connection here?)

GIS Jobs
Finally, those not sure why GIS should be part of the curricula in secondary schools need only be reminded on how many public and private sectors use this information. ESRI provides several snapshots of these GIS-related jobs, too (e.g., farming, military, retail stores). P-12 education is catching up with this approach to geography, and these (and other) free resources are making this topic more accessible to schools on tight budgets. Happy exploring...

August 28, 2013: 50 Years Since the March on Washington

Today, bells rang at 3pm EST to commemorate the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. More specifically, ringing the bells at three was to signify the importance of one person and one speech, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream." Fifty years later, this powerful speech has become the central focus for the march and civil rights in the U.S, yet a lot of other speeches and individuals were (and are) equally important.

In this post, I thought I would share some resources related to this important date in history. First, I want to highlight an invaluable online video resource, The Teaching Channel. There, you can find hundreds of classroom videos of lessons specifically tied to the Common Core Standards. Inside this archive, you can find about 14 videos related to the Standford History Education Group's project, Reading Like a Historian. At the Stanford site, you can find over 75 quality PRIMARY SOURCE lessons for U.S. and World History.

Here are some lesson ideas for today's historic event from both sites:

1) Teaching Channel's Corroboration Lesson Video for March on Washington (note the full lesson is linked in the lower right-hand corner when you scroll down the screen).

2) Stanford History Education Group's Corroboration Lesson Plan for Civil Rights Act of 1964, which includes an excerpt from the speech John Lewis gave at the march in 1963.

Book Builder Project at ATE

This week, I presented my Book Builder projects at the Association of Teacher Educators annual meeting in sunny Orlando, FL. As promised in my presentation, here are links to the books I have created with a 5th grade teacher to use in her classroom. Here's also a link to my Prezi I used for the presentation.

They Book Builder lessons are:
1. Washington Crossing the Delaware
2. Indian Removal Act (5th Grade Version)
3. Slavery in the U.S. Constitution
4. Indian Removal Act (7th Grade Version)
5. Body Ritual of the Nacirema - Notice that it only has text. The students' task for this reading was to illustrate the Nacirema for the "cover" of this book.

viz. A Blog for Media Literacy Pedagogy

via viz

While doing an image search for an unrelated project, I came across this informative blog, vis. Visual Rhetoric, Visual Culture, Pedagogy, from the University of Texas. As the subtitle explains, this blog has a nicely arranged series of posts related to a curriculum I usually refer to as media literacy on my blog. Namely, this curriculum focuses on the creative techniques advertisers, governments, or any other creators of propaganda use to inform or persuade an intended audience.

Granted, at first glance, some of the content found on the viz website might seem "too philosophical" for elementary and secondary social studies students; however, the concepts presented in several of the its posts provide a helpful structure for any social studies curriculum.

Here's what I mean:

In the secondary social studies classroom, media literacy pedagogy usually makes a brief, yet underdeveloped and unconnected, appearance during a unit on World War II. I've seen what feels like countless lessons on WWII Propaganda Posters. The usual routine is to show students a series of posters and to point out how countries dehumanized the enemy. In other cases, this lesson amounts to little more than an interesting slide show intended to "break up" the usual lecture routine. Such a poster activity is no doubt a great way to introduce students to visual culture, but these activities usually lack a coherent connection to the rest of the curriculum or the students' everyday lives, for that matter. For example, consider the possibility that some of the techniques (e.g., guilt, peer pressure) governments used for WWII propaganda posters are also found in a commercial for a candy bar.

via viz

An example of pedagogy related to WWII posters on the the viz website is under the "assignments" section with a lesson titled "Visual Rhetoric and Violence." There is also a great series of related posts tagged "Propaganda." The central message throughout these posts and assignments is an emphasis on comparing "arguments, strategies/appeals, and effectiveness." Another website/resource that can guide the "strategies" question is "It's No Laughing Matter" from the Library of Congress. (See previous post for more detail.)

Anyway... I just found the viz site, so I have some more exploring to do to see what I can use for my methods course.

GeoMath

Example of lesson (Health of Nations) from GeoMath Lessons

Another amazing resource for lessons concerning geography is GeoMath. This initiative combines the social sciences--specifically, geography--with mathematics. You can search their lessons by alphabetical listing, grade level, and even national standards (Geography or Mathematics).

More Geography Resources

Here are a few additional geography resources of note.

In a previous post, I mentioned the National Geographic Xpeditions site, which is a great spot to find lessons and print-friendly maps. Another place to get maps, including "Maps with Historical Themes" (e.g., Silk Road, Moundbuilder sites in the U.S.) is under the "Maps" tab (on the left-hand side of the homepage) from the Arizona Geographic Alliance site.

Another quick link to resources is Education World's "Great Sites" for map-related activities.

Teachnology also archives great lesson ideas, including the Edible State Map Lesson Plan (including the recipe).

via Google Maps

Finally, don't forget about the myriad features via Google Maps (I talk about Google Earth and gCensus in a previous post). For example, when teaching younger students the differences between horizontal and bird's eye views, that little "yellow figure" can be dragged to any location for a street-level view of most communities.

Street-level image (once figure is dragged to map) via Google Maps

Lessons, lessons, lessons

What could become a wasted Google search

A Google search for "Social Studies" and "Lesson Plans" will result in roughly 1 million hits or sites. There's a lot to sift through, and a lot of it can be...well, less than desirable. Fortunately, a lot of the professional organizations devoted to social studies education (and a few for-profits and not-for-profits) can help reduce the time it would take to sift through a lot of rubbish. Here are a few highlights:

Geography - National Geographic Xpeditions
Psychology - Social Psychology Teaching Resources
Economics - National Council for Economics Education Lesson Plans
Political Science - Center for Civic Education Sample Lessons
Political Science - Center for Civic Education Constitution Lessons

Constitution Day is September 17th

Center for Civic Education

Constitution Day is September 17. Here are a few resources that may be of interest. First, the Center for Civic Education is offering several PK-12 Constitution lessons. (All are free pdf downloads.)

There are also a number of other free sample lesson plans for civics education from the Center for Civic Education. A general search for sample lessons will give you several options. Here are some of the highlights from this search:

• POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT: THE CASE OF LATVIA
• Lesson 6: What are the Possible Consequences of Privacy?
• Lesson 1: Why do we need a government?
• Responsibility
• Lesson 28: How Can Citizens Participate?
  
• Lesson 15: What Conflicting Opinions Did the Framers Have about the Completed Constitution?

Semantic Constitution

Another resource for working directly with the pivotal U.S. government document is the Semantic Constitution. This site allows you to sort information in the Constitution by article and topic (e.g., debt, religion, veto).

Choices Program

Finally, a multimedia approach for instruction is available at the Choices site. Here, for example, students can see videos of interviews with scholars Gordon Wood and Michael Vorenberg as they discuss issues related to the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution. In one excerpt, Gordon Wood answers the question, "How was the American Revolution more radical than the founders had intended?"

Economics Concepts and Lesson Plan Ideas

Economics is an often overlooked, yet equally important, discipline in the social sciences. Here are a few helpful links for resources. First, this site provides a nice overview of Economics Concepts, including definitions. Secondly, the Council for Economics Education provides several helpful resources, including a list of lesson plans arranged (or retrievable) by grade level, economics concept, and national economics standard. At last count, the website boasts a total 648 lessons available for your perusal. Finally, The Mint has a lot of helpful online activities to illustrate basic economics concepts.