Geography, Day 6 - Class Recap

Today, we took the North America quiz and worked on identifying the states. This is a picture I took at the California Poppy Reserve in 2008.

Dear class,

Today was another quiz and work day, as we progress through the maps of the world and being able to identify where countries are. We also had a solid amount of work time at the end of class to be studying and completing the Five Themes of Geography packet. 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: "Shadow" by Austin Mahone. Selected for today because a student in Period 1 recommended it to me via email, and because Austin Mahone is from North America (Texas). Also, the music video shows him walking around London, England - one of my favorite cities in the world! Lyrics here.

AGENDA 9/30/15:
News Brief – Caden
North America Map Quiz
States
Atlas/Map Work

Homework: Read the blog. Finish Europe map (colored and labeled) for the quiz next class. Next news brief: Yanuel.

News Brief: Caden had the news brief today and selected this story to talk about: CNN.com -Russia conducts first airstrike in Syria. Specifically, we found Russia on our world maps and talked about how both the United States and Russia are conducting air strikes inside Syria against ISIS, except that Russia wants Syria's president to stay, but the United States wants him to go, so that makes it really tricky. We also talked about NASA announcing that water was found on Mars!  Thanks, Caden! Yanuel was selected as the next person up.

As part of the News Brief section, we are going to watch the one minute world news from the BBC, until VICE News continues with their news capsule service (which hasn't updated in two weeks, so maybe they stopped). Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day:

BBCNews.com - One-minute World News

I think being aware of what is going on around the world is an important habit to develop! :-)

North America Map Quiz: The third 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.

States: Since we were testing on North America today in class, and I think it is important that we know our own country as a part of Global Studies, I passed out a blank US states map to label and study (you will not be able to use it on the eventual quiz). Some more ways to study for this quiz (which will be after all of the continents) are: 1) Printing this map and labeling it from memory (remember that spelling counts). 2) Playing the US States Sporcle game and typing in the names of the states.

Atlas/Map Work: The last part of class was dedicated to labeling and coloring the Europe section of the map packet (there are a lot of countries in Europe and it is pretty detailed, so I understand if you are using arrows to label), 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 small country is a principality located between Switzerland and Austria. 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):

Google Drive - Five Themes of Geography Atlas Packet

Thanks, everyone! You did a great job of focusing and being able to self-direct your learning in class today!

Geography, Day 5 - Class Recap

Today's map quiz was on Oceania. I told the class that I once visited Kiribati (pronounced Kire-eh-bahs) for a couple of hours in 2014. That was on purpose on a layover from Fiji from Hawaii! One of my very favorite passport stamps!

Hello everyone,

I had a lot of fun with today's class, and I hope you did, too! Thank you for all of your support this week, as it was a difficult one personally with remembering my dad, and also a really great one here at Westview. 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: "Back in Black" by AC/DC. Selected for today because a student recommended it, and because AC/DC is from Australia, which the map quiz was on today! Lyrics here.

AGENDA 9/28/15:
News Brief – Kaleb
Oceania Map Quiz
Island Mountains
Atlas/Map Work

Homework: Read the blog. Finish North America map (colored and labeled) for the quiz next class. Next news brief: Caden.

News Brief: Kaleb had the news brief today and selected this story to talk about: BBCNews.com - Volkswagen: The scandal explained. This is a story out of Germany, which we found on our world maps and highlighted/starred. Basically, VW made diesel cars that were designed to cheat the emissions standards for 7-8 years, and were thus super polluting. This is a huge story with how much damage could have been done to the environment and how big the fines might be. It also might be the death of the diesel car industry. Thanks, Kaleb! Caden volunteered to do the next news brief.

We also checked in about the weekend and talked about what everyone was up to. The eclipse was pretty cool!

Oceania Map Quiz: The next 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.

Island Mountains: I loved doing this activity for the first time with my classes! Like I said, I was taught how to do this lesson 6 years ago when I was getting my Masters at Lewis and Clark, and I haven't used it until today. It was so cool to see all of the different islands that students created! The directions for this activity were:

Crumple up a white piece of paper.

Wrap a writing utensil around the middle, so there is a bump in the paper.

Lay it down on a blue piece of paper. Cut off the corners, so that the bottom is circular/curved.

Tape the sides down.

Start coloring the mountain with:
Forests (a ring of green around the middle)
Rivers (blue streams down the sides of the mountain)
Cliffs and rocks (brown or grey)
Lava (red, if you want),
Beaches (yellow/orange).
The only part to your island that could be majority white is the top (snow).

Draw some houses on the flat parts to your island, next to the rivers that would provide water. Where would ships go? Draw a harbor there.

Identify where humans and the environment (Knowledge Target 10 shout out!) would be interacting on your island. Give your island a name and write it on the blue of the ocean!

Make a key for your map – how big is each inch? A mile? Draw a compass (North, South, East, West) for your map!

Here's one resulting map, which was super awesome:

Woo hoo! I hope you enjoyed this activity (really focusing on the behavior target of self-directing learning), but also about Oceania/islands and human/environment interaction!

Atlas/Map Work: The last part of class was dedicated to labeling and coloring the North America/Caribbean 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 country, the furthest east of all the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean, is east of St. Lucia.. 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):

Google Drive - Five Themes of Geography Atlas Packet

We did not have a ton of time in class to work on this, due to the fun mountain making activity, So, I took a picture of the North America/Caribbean section (remember that these are two different map pages in your map packet) to help with labeling and coloring at home for the next quiz:

If you click on it, the image should get much bigger.

Have a great week, everyone! I appreciate all of your hard work so far in class. See you on Wednesday!

Geography, Day 4 - Class Recap

My friend Ryan and I, on a mountain looking over Bogota, Colombia in 2009. We had our South America map quiz today in class, which included Colombia!

Hi wonderful students,

Great to see you all again today! It was a quiz and work day in class. 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: "Tom Sawyer" by Rush. Selected for today because it was one of my dad's favorite songs, and he was killed one year ago today. Thank you, everyone, for being so kind and understanding that this was a very difficult day for me. Lyrics here. Memorial tribute that I wrote last year and delivered at my dad's memorial is here (it talks a little about Tom Sawyer).

AGENDA 9/24/15:
News Brief – Lauren
SA Map Quiz
Atlas/Map Work
Oceania

Homework: Read the blog. Finish Oceania map (colored and labeled) for the quiz next class. Next news brief: Kaleb.

News Brief: Lauren had the news brief today and selected this story to talk about: BBCNews.com - Egypt releases Al Jazeera journalists Fahmy and Mohamed. We found Egypt on our world maps and talked about the revolution there, the chaotic government, and what a presidential pardon is. Thanks, Lauren!

Kaleb was randomly selected as the next person to do a news brief.

We also had a good check in about the weekend and life in general. Thanks, everyone!

SA Map Quiz: As promised, the first map quiz. This was for South America and it is probably the easiest map quiz of the six we will do. Hopefully, you understand the importance of having a completed map to use on the test, and of reading the blog! We corrected the quiz in class and I passed it out for students to see what they got, before collecting them to be returned for good next class.

Five Themes Work: This was the atlas work packet that we have been working on in class the last few days. This will be due at the end of the Geography unit (in about 3 classes, when we are done with each of the continents) and will count towards the assessment of a learning target. If you missed class, the packet is here (you need to work in class with the atlas in order to complete this):

Google Drive - Five Themes of Geography Atlas Packet

Please keep at this in class and work hard to get it done!

Oceania: The last part of class was dedicated to labeling and coloring the Australia/Oceania section of the map packet, in order to be able to use it on the upcoming quiz next class. This is much tougher than the South America quiz, so be ready! For checking the blog, here's a question from the quiz: This is the northernmost country in Oceania, with U.S. territories to the west and east. 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

Again, mostly a work day today. Thanks for your focus today. See you next class!