Update on Return

Fire spinners outside of City Hall at my dad's public celebration of life, on Sunday.

Hey everyone,

Thanks for being so good for Julie and Ed the last few days. I am excited to be getting back to Westview after the death of my dad, especially to see all of you! Just a quick heads up, here's what is happening:

1) I will be at Wednesday's Back to School night. It starts at 7:00 PM - please encourage your parents to attend and to get there early, because parking is sometimes a challenge. We will talk about general overview of class stuff, as well as how crazy it is that the first progress report is due next week.

2) I will be back teaching (and coaching) full time on Thursday, which is a B day, as I understand it. We will definitely take it easy to start - I want to make sure I explain to everyone why I was gone, what happened, and just make some observations about life lessons that I think are pretty important. As I understand it, all Global Studies classes should be done with the Europe quiz. We will work in class on the Africa map when I get back, as well as start our look at culture.

3) I can't even begin to tell you how much my family and I have appreciated your support, whether it was through emails or messages, thoughts and prayers, or simply just being good and understanding for the substitutes. Thank you, everyone. It's going to be great to see you all later this week.

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! :-)

Geography, Day 4 - Class Recap

This is a globe that was in a house that George Washington stayed at for a few weeks in Barbados. Photo taken in 2011.

Hi everyone,

We are officially on the back side of the week! Hooray. Today, we learned about the Five Themes of Geography and did some more map work with the atlases in class. Here's what happened:

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: "Maps" by Maroon 5. Get it? Because we are learning about Geography and maps? Ha, ha. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 9/18/14:
News Brief – Maddy
 - Scotland
Blog Recap
Five Themes of Geography
Atlases
Map Work

Homework: Read the blog. Bring a photo for the wall if you have not already. Study for North America map quiz next class (need completed and colored map of North America done in order to use). Next news brief: Jillian.

News Brief: Maddy brought in this article as her news brief today: ABCnews.go.com - Bangladesh Court Reduces Sentence of Islamist. We found Bangladesh on our world map (in Asia) and highlighted or put a star by it, so we know we talked about it. I mentioned that Bangladesh used to be a part of Pakistan (it was called East Pakistan) from 1955 to 1971, and that this was probably related to that. It was! Thanks for the article, Maddy!

I also wanted to be sure to address the election today in Scotland, where the people there are electing to see if they want to become their own country, away from the rest of the United Kingdom and Great Britain. This is such an interesting event to me, especially as a British citizen! It would sort of be like if the State of Washington was holding an election to become their own country, away from the United States. I took a ton of questions from the class about all of this (impossible to recap them all, but it was an excellent discussion and exactly what I want the news brief section to look like), and I also played a video message from my friend Matthew Lumby, who was in Glasgow, Scotland today! I used the document camera in class to play it from my phone, but here's the full version, that I just put on YouTube! :-)

Matthew's message was cut a bit short at the end, so he sent me a text message to say: "Hope you have a good day and check the results at around 10 PM your time tonight."

How cool is that? Technology, globalization, elections, teaching, and friends are awesome. Combining all at once? Epic.

Blog Recap: For this section, I just wanted to show this website again and re-emphasize the importance of checking in, reading the recaps, on staying on top of what we are doing in class. For instance, a map quiz question that you will already know if you are reading this is: This country, east of Cuba, makes up the western half of the island known as Hispaniola. A lot of time and effort goes into writing the blog - please use it to help yourself be successful! :-)

Five Themes of Geography: Basically, this was a PowerPoint presentation in combination with a handout for notes on each of the themes and an activity using the atlases. The Five Themes of Geography are:

Movement
Regions
Human Environment interactions
Location
Place

Or: MR. HELP!

For those that were not in class or wanted to see the presentation again for additional review, here it is:

Google Drive - Five Themes of Geography PowerPoint

Google Drive - Five Themes of Geography Worksheet Handout

Atlases: The rest of class was dedicated to working on the handout, by finding maps in the atlas that relate to each of the themes of Geography and the subsections. For instance, the map of refugees in the world would be an excellent example of Movement --> Human Movement.

Map Work: Again, a heads up that you need your completed North America/Caribbean map, with the countries labeled and colored to use next class on the quiz. Please use a website like Google Maps, or ask questions if you need help! Here are the maps again:

Google Drive - World Maps for Class

Sound good? See you next class!