Geography, Day 7 - Class Recap

The Nile River going through Cairo, Egypt. The Nile is the longest river in the world and flows through seven countries in Africa. Today in class, we had the Africa map quiz - hopefully you knew where all of those countries are! Photo taken on July 28, 2014, as I was being taken to the airport to fly out.

Dear class,

Back at it with another week - this one is short, in that you have Friday off, while teachers have staff development and grading for progress reports to do. Here's what happened today in class:

Learning Targets:
Knowledge LT 7: I can demonstrate the ability to use geographic tools.
Knowledge LT 11: I can demonstrate an understanding of the connection between the physical and human systems.

Soundtrack: "I Ka Barra (Your Work)" by Habib Koite. Selected for today because Habib Koite is from Senegal and based in Mali - two countries in Africa. The song lyrics are in Bambara (the main language in Mali), so here's a link to the actual song if you want to just listen to it again.

AGENDA 10/6/14:
News Brief – Rui
Africa Quiz
Five Themes of Geography
Asia/Middle East

Homework: Read the blog. Asia map quiz next class (need labeled and colored Asia map completed to be able to use on the quiz). Keep working on your Five Themes of Geography packet with the in class atlas (this will be due in class next time we meet - you will have some time to work on it). Students need to have their completed world map packet, ready to turn in next class, as well. Next news brief: Tyler.

News Brief: Rui had the news brief today and selected this article to talk about (thanks for emailing it to me in advance!): CNN.com - Is North Korea still digging tunnels to the South? We found North Korea on our world maps and talked about why they might be wanting to dig tunnels to the South. I also talked about my experience visiting North Korea for about two minutes last January, as I went to the other side of one of the huts on the center of the DMZ line. Always fun to talk about! Thanks, Rui. Tyler was randomly selected to do the next news brief.

Africa Quiz: This marks continent quiz 5 out of 6 for us. Again, students could only use their Africa maps to help if they had them completed by labeling and coloring them. We are going to use these maps all year long - especially during the news briefs, so it is very important they are done correctly!

Five Themes of Geography: After the quiz grades were done, I wanted students to move on to trying to finish the five themes packet (linked above in the homework section) and make sure that Asia was labeled and colored. We will have a quiz on Asia next class (while handing in your three best map quizzes, the world map packet, and the Five Themes of Geography notes and activity). That will bring us to the first progress report, which teachers will be working on next Friday (students do not have school).

Asia/Middle East: The last item in class was to make sure these two maps were being worked on and completed for next class. Once we are done with the Asia quiz, you will be turning these in for a few days so I can assess them! If you would like to see how your progress report grade is going to be figured out, here is the rubric we are going to use in class for self-assessment - then I will make my own assessment and remarks.

See you next class! Be ready to turn everything in!