Geography, Day 5 - Class Recap

Edinburgh Castle, in Scotland, which remains part of the United Kingdom after the independence referendum. Photo taken in 2007, when I was studying abroad (based in London).

Dear class,

Even though it was more of a work day today, it was nice to see everyone and learn a bit more class content! Here's what happened today:

Learning Targets:
Knowledge LT 6: I can demonstrate an understanding of the characteristics of locations and regions.
Knowledge LT 7: I can demonstrate the ability to use geographic tools.

Soundtrack: "Better Together" by Jack Johnson. Selected for today because of the results of the Scotland independence referendum, which sided with the United Kingdom, instead of independence. "Better Together" was the slogan of the NO campaign, which won. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 9/22/14:
News Brief – Jillian
 - Scotland
NA Map Quiz
Atlas Work
South America

Homework: Read the blog. South America map quiz next class (need labeled and colored South America map completed to be able to use on the quiz). Next news brief: Scout.

News Brief: Jillian brought in the news brief today and selected this story to talk about: BBC.com - Turkey clamps down on Syria border after Kurdish unrest. We found Turkey on our world maps and highlighted it, noting we have talked about a story there. We also discussed the continuing hardship in Syria with the civil war, ISIS, and dictatorship all combining into a really toxic environment for the citizens there.

I also wanted to be sure to address the election in Scotland, where the people there were electing to see if they wanted to become their own country, away from the rest of the United Kingdom and Great Britain. This was such an interesting event to me, especially as a British citizen! It was sort of like if the State of Washington was holding an election to become their own country, away from the United States. I played another video message from my friend Matthew Lumby, who was in Glasgow, Scotland to watch the result!

Again, I thought this was pretty cool.

NA Map Quiz: A huge amount of students still did not have their North American maps completed, which was too bad for them. Do your homework, and listen when I say that you have a quiz next class, please! Overall, the scores on this were quite low. Those students that had completed maps and knew how to read them did a whole lot better. Please be on top of this! There will be 6 map quizzes. You can use the top 3 to demonstrate proficiency on Knowledge LT 7.

Atlas Work/South America: The rest of class after the quiz (and grading the quiz together) was dedicated to quiet work on the Five Themes of Geography packet (I will let you know when this will be due in class) and the South America map (which needs to be labeled and colored for next class in order to be able to be used on the quiz). As a reward for reading the blog, a question from the quiz is: This country in southern South America is bordered by five others.

Thanks for your work and effort in class, and for doing your homework in reading the blog! Be ready for the quiz next class and stay on top of your work! :-)