Today's map quiz was on Europe. In 2013, I took a two month trip to Europe and traveled by plane, train, and bus all around. Here's a collage of photos from each stop of the trip.
Hi everyone,
We are getting close to the end of the Geography unit! Thank you for your patience and understanding that geography is really important! Here's what happened today:
Learning Targets:
Behavior LT 2: I can self-direct my learning.
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: "Trans Europe Express" by Kraftwerk. Selected for today because it was the Europe quiz in class, naturally. Lyrics here.
AGENDA 10/2/15:
News Brief/UCC – Yanuel
Europe Map Quiz
Geographic Literacy
Atlas/Map Work
Homework: Read the blog. Finish Africa map (colored and labeled) for the quiz next class. Keep studying for the upcoming states quiz. Next news brief: Isaac.
News Brief: Yanuel had the news brief today and selected this story to talk about: USAToday.com - Afghan troops struggle to regain Kunduz. We found Afghanistan on the world map (specifically, the Middle East) as we talked about this story, which involves the Taliban taking over a capital city of a province, which is a big deal. Thanks, Yanuel! Isaac was drawn as the next person up.
We also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):
Finally, I wanted to address the shooting yesterday at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. Obviously, this is not a story outside of the United States, but we also are not blind to huge stories happening here. I went over some of the basics of what happened, and showed students the response plan (posted around the room) should Westview ever find ourselves in a similar situation. We also talked a bit about gun laws, the possible influence of religion on this case, and President Obama's address to the nation about the shooting. As I said in class, I try to not live my life in fear of such an event, and I also know that we, as a society, need to do much better.
Moving on for the time being...
Europe Map Quiz: The fourth map quiz out of the six! Remember that your top three scores will be turned in for your grade for the geography targets. We corrected the quiz in class and then I entered the scores in the gradebook. You will get them back to keep in your binder next class.
Geographic Literacy: I know that class has been a little repetitive lately, with quizzes and work time, I wanted to show again why it is important that we are learning about geography. So, I played this clip:
Yikes, to say the least! "Name a country in South America." "Uh... Africa?"
The problem is that this is not uncommon. To back up my point that we really need to know our geography as a society, I showed this article about the results of a 2006 National Geographic study:
Some of the statistics on there (granted, almost a decade old, but I would be willing to bet the numbers have not changed that much) are really frightening, about how little Americans the age of the students in our class know about geography. Less than 20% of young Americans even OWN a world map, which is a reason why I really care that you do! With that in mind, we moved on to continuing to label and prepare for the next map quiz.
Atlas/Map Work: The last part of class was dedicated to labeling and coloring the Africa section of the map packet, in order to be able to use it on the upcoming quiz next class. For checking the blog, here's a question from the quiz: This mountainous central African country is located between Uganda and Burundi. If you are missing your map packet and know you need to have it done, please print out another and have it ready to go for next class:
Google Drive - World Maps Packet
Also, here's the Five Themes of Geography Atlas activity to continue working on (which mostly has to be in class with the atlases here):
Have a great weekend, everyone! See you next week. :-)
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