Second+Marking+Period+Information

Unit Two Learning Goals:

“I can explain how natural resources influence where people live.” “I can evaluate the effect of physical geography on how societies develop.” “I can form my own opinions about the impact that humans have had on the environment.” “I can judge the difference between greed and need.” “I can use data to support my conclusion about the level of development of any country.”
 * __ Unit Essential Questions: I Can Statements __**
 * Date || Class Log ||
 * 1/12 || Current Events Project II ||
 * 1/13 || Current Events Project II ||
 * 1/14 || My apologies to the students but I was out with the flu Monday and Tuesday. Upon checking in with them today, I am pleased to see that they are progressing nicely on the new current event project. The requirements are posted below. Tomorrow we will begin the Unit Two exam. This test will be different from others we have had this year. The test will focus more on application and less on recovery of facts. A good way to study for the exam is to examine the essential questions (posted above in the form of "I can" statements) and provide evidence for each statement. To excel on the exam, you will need to understand each statement and be able to show evidence that you can do each goal listed. The following vocab will also be helpful.

Per Capita GDP Developed Nation Developing Nation Statistic Characteristic Life Expectancy Literacy Rate Need Greed Climate Urban Arctic ||
 * 1/15 || The students took part one of the Unit Two Assessment. ||
 * 1/16 ||  ||


 * Date || Class Log ||
 * 1/5 || Classes today were combined with the other Social Studies classes. Over the course of the next three days, each geography teacher will present an issue to the students that could be considered an issue of need or greed. This directly relates to our final learning goal for the unit. It is important to note that we do not a predetermined answer for the students. It is our goal that they analyze the facts from each issue and decide for themselves if people are being needy or greedy. Mr. Crabtree presented the first issue today, which was fracking for oil and natural gas in Pennsylvania. ||
 * 1/6 || Our series of presentations continued today. Mr. Mackley presented the issue of saving the Chesapeake Bay. He used the chicken industry as an example for the kids to think about. ||
 * 1/7 || Our presentations concluded today. I presented the issue of water stress on the Colorado River and compared to what the kids had previously learned about the Aral Sea. All three of these presentations were designed to get the kids thinking about where they stand on issues and using facts to support their decisions. They will need this skill on the unit test. The Unit Test will be next Thursday and Friday, January 15th and 16th. ||
 * 1/8 || In class today I went over the Ranking Developing Nations project essay. The students were introduced to the concept of the an introduction paragraph and a conclusion. They were given time to create an introduction and a conclusion for their 3 body paragraphs that they had already created. ||
 * 1/9 || Below find attached the requirements for the next round of current events. If you finished the RDN essay in class today, read over the directions and begin looking for a debate topic. Some topics to consider are: gun control, the death penalty, fracking,year round school, school uniforms, is football too dangerous, women in combat, U.S. involvement in the Middle East, and corporal punishment. There are many, many more topics. These are just a few off the top of my head.

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 * date || class log ||
 * 12/22 || In class I went over again, the expectations for the final portion of the Ranking Developing Nations project. I also share what a sample paragraph might look like. That paragraph is posted below. This is a very basic paragraph that could be vastly improved with the additional examples of data from the project and some improved writing style. This is just an example to give the students the idea. The project is due when we return from the break.

Countries of the world are considered developed or developing. The country of Russia is considered developing. Russia scored poorly in the area of rate of urbanization. Rate of urbanization measures the growth of cities in a country. Russia’s rate of urbanization is .13%, scoring only 3 points on the Ranking Developing Nations chart. Developed nations show a higher rate of urbanization, which is one of the characteristics of a developed nation ||
 * 12/23 || No class ||
 * 12/24 || No School ||


 * Date || Class Log ||
 * 12/15 || In class today we started the next topic in unit. We will be looking at the difference between developed and developing countries and trying to establish a system or formula for measuring if a country has reached the developed level. This process will be challenging and it will require a lot of statistical data about each country we examine. Attached here is the reading that we will start with to determine the characteristics of a developing country.

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 * 12/16 || We started a project called "Ranking Developing Nations." The students are using data in five different statistical categories to determine the level of development for twenty different countries. The stats are connected to the definition of a developed country that we studied in class yesterday. The stats must reflect Healthcare, Technology, Education, Wealth, and Urbanization. Hard copies of the assignment were given to every student. The students decided on their statistical categories today and started to collect their data. ||
 * 12/17 || The students spent the time in class today deciding on their statistics that will use for the project, "Ranking Developing Nations." ||
 * 12/18 || Most of the groups in class have gathered their data and have started the process of sorting it to determine where each country ranks in each category. They are then recording these scores to determine a country's total score. Some groups have started part three of the assignment. In the final phase they will determine which countries are developed and which are not. They are then required to pick 3 countries that are developing and identify which area (health, wealth, education, urbanization, or technology) is preventing them from reaching developed. They write a paragraph about each country and their analysis. The project is due Monday. ||


 * Date || Class Log ||
 * 12/8 || In class today, I returned the desert region quiz. The vocab and the multiple choice were very poorly represented on this quiz. Many students did not do well. I instructed the students to make corrections to the quiz and I will administer another quiz at a later time. Students who did not finish the corrections in class should finish them for homework. The corrections are due tomorrow. Students who finished them early continued working on chapter 26 (see below). The quiz for our work on Russian history and the Aral Sea will be Friday.

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 * 12/9 || In class, the students were given a re-quiz on the vocabulary from the desert region quiz. After that, the students had time to complete their work for chapter 26. We will review this information in class on Thursday and the **Aral Sea and Russian History Quiz will take place on Friday**. ||
 * 12/10 || In class we began with a pre-test to determine the students' background knowledge on our next topic, which will be developed and developing nations. After the pre-test, the students had the remaining time to complete their assignments on the Aral Sea. ||
 * 12/11 || In class we went over the correct answers to both the video review sheet and the ISN pages for chapter 26. These are excellent study guides for tomorrow's quiz. In addition, the students should know the following terms:

water stress, Communism, pesticides, Tsar, potable, nuclear, westernization, saline, salinization, autocratic, cash crop, revolutionary, climate, fresh water, ground water, environmental degradation, and migrate.

In addition, these practice questions will help you prepare for tomorrow's quiz.

How was life similar for the Russian people under the Tsar and the Communist Party?

According to the book, one theme of Russian History is “invasion and expansion.” Identify two groups that invaded Russia and one example of Russian expansion.

What was the Cold War? Provide a time period, a description, and which countries were involved.

Explain how Russian history relates to or directly caused the destruction of the Aral Sea.

Explain how the changes the Soviets made to the Aral Sea area affected the lives of fishermen, farmers, and residents. ||
 * 12/12 || The students took the "Russia and the Aral Sea" Quiz. ||


 * Date || Class Log ||
 * 12/1 || No School ||
 * 12/2 || In class today we started to read the section on Russian history. This is being done as a class so that I can model for the students how to make connections to prior knowledge, how to connect different parts of the reading together, how to pick out the big ideas, and once again how to take notes. We managed to get through about half the material today. We will complete it tomorrow. The reading is posted below on last week's class log for students who want to re-read or pre-read the material. ||
 * 12/3 || Our class today was spent finishing the reading on Russian history. The class included some background information on WWII and the Cold War. This was all done in an effort to provide the students with a clear sense of who the Soviets were before we look into the disaster that occurred with the Aral Sea. Tomorrow we will review some strategies that the students can use when reading a textbook and we will begin looking at the Aral Sea incident in detail.

Aral Sea video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC5UIEx83fo ||
 * 12/4 || In class today we concluded the reading of the Russian History section. I then reviewed some tips and strategies for reading from the textbook and allowed the students to move forward with the Aral Sea topic. To start, they watched the video link posted above and answered some questions about it. They then moved on to chapter 26 and I encouraged the students to use the strategies we introduced. While the students worked, I met with them individually to discuss where their grades are at this point in the marking period and what they need to work on.

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 * 12/5 || The students worked toward completing the questions for the Aral Sea video and the reading and ISN pages for chapter 26. ||


 * Date || Class Log ||
 * 11/24 || Students were given the desert region quiz today. ||
 * 11/25 || In class today, the students will be looking at the PSAs that each group recorded on the topic of desertification. We will follow up this activity by starting the third topic of our unit. The third topic concerns the impact that humans have had on the environment. While there are many different examples that we could use for this topic, our focus will be on the Aral Sea region. To fully understand this, we will have to look at some Russian history and begin to explore the idea of communism.

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 * 11/26 || No class. Students participated in the Turkey Trot activities. ||
 * 11/27 || No School, Happy Thanksgiving! ||
 * 11/28 || No School ||


 * Date || Class Log ||
 * 11/17 || Today the students should have completed their reading, note taking, and questions from the sections on Mali and Algeria. New assignments are chapter 20 from the green text and pages 171,172, and 173 from the ISN. Once completed, the students will be using what they have learned about life in the desert and the growing problem of desertification, to create a Public Service Announcement designed to educate the people of the Sahara region about what they can do to stop the growth of the desert. The students will be using their Ipads to create the PSA.

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 * 11/18 || In class today I showed some examples of Public Service Announcements including some from another school that dealt with desertification. The students are planning their own public service announcements with their groups on the topic of desertification. In addition, the reading and ISN pages for chapter are also being worked on. The PSA and chapter 20 are due on Friday of this week. A quiz on the desert and desertification will take place next Monday. ||
 * 11/19 || Students continued to work in their groups on their work for chapter 20 and their public service announcements. This work is due on Friday and a quiz on the desert region information will take place Monday. ||
 * 11/20 || Students continued to work through the desertification projects and assignments. These should all be completed by the end of class tomorrow. The quiz for this part of the project will be Monday. ||
 * 11/21 || PSA's were completed today and the finished results have been very interesting. Many of the students used the new "green screen" technology to create videos that appear to take place in various locations and with various themes. All of them are centered on the topic of desertification. Again the quiz is on Monday. ||


 * Date || Class Log ||
 * 11/10 || Students worked on completing their notes from the Ancient World Textbook. They then shared their notes and what they had learned with the members of their group. I also provided the groups with a list of the vocabulary terms from each section of the book that they could complete and use as a study guide. The quiz for the Ancient World information will be Wednesday. ||
 * 11/11 || Thank you to all of the veterans who have served our country and maintained our freedom! In class the students completed the work from the Ancient World text and were given some practice questions to help them prepare for the quiz tomorrow. ||
 * 11/12 || The students must have spent some time in church last night because the quizzes did not arrive this morning from the print shop. Therefore, the quiz will be moved to tomorrow. In class, we moved on to our next topic which is the second "I can" statement (see above). In this part of the unit we are looking at how the lack of water in a desert region influenced the development of different societies. Please find the readings attached.

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 * 11/13 || Ancient World Quiz ||
 * 11/14 || In order to allow time this afternoon for our debate and presidential election, we shortened our morning classes and had all four periods. This meant that we only had class for about 25 minutes. In that time, I had students who needed to finish the quiz from yesterday working on that while other students continued to work on the assignment we started on Wednesday. ||


 * Date || Class Log ||
 * 11/3 || In class today, our school librarian Mrs. Lister, came to class to instruct our students on several resources that are available through the library website. She also showed the students how to use the website easybib. This site helps the students create citations for any research they may do and by creating an account, they are able to store these citations for later use. Tomorrow we will return to our latest unit and the work we have started with cooperative learning. ||
 * 11/4 || Today we watched a video about the Natufian culture. The Natufians were one of the earliest farming societies that we have physical evidence for. The video supplied some visual learning for the new unit we have started. The students completed a note sheet while watching the film. ||
 * 11/5 || In class today we watched campaign speeches that were delivered by the 10 students who are running for President. Each student had presented their speech live to their geography class. I recorded them and shared them with the classes that did not see them live. This way, each candidate had equal exposure to the voters. With the remaining time, the students worked on the assignment from 10/31 (see below). ||
 * 11/6 || Today I showed the students the campaign commercials that were created by our candidates. After the commercials, we reviewed the notes from the Ancient Farmers video we watched on Tuesday. Students who were absent and did not get to see the video can see me at flex or after school to see the video. ||
 * 11/7 ||  ||


 * Date || Class Log ||
 * 10/27 || Unit Test Part II. The students took part two of the unit test today. This took the whole period. ||
 * 10/28 || In class today, we began the foundation for our next unit. I have rearranged the room into groups of four (generally) and began to instruct the students on to function effectively in group settings. I explained to the students that if they can master four skills, their success in group settings will increase significantly. Those skills are participating, attendance, listening, and staying on task. I defined these skills for the students by explaining what it looks like and what it sounds like. I also explained to the students that I will be grading them on their use of these skills and recording that as a participation grade. The students have these expectations in their notes. ||
 * 10/29 || The groups in class started working on their first assignment today. Our new unit will focus on human-environment interaction. In the beginning of the unit, we are going back to the beginning of civilization and looking at the importance of water. The groups collectively read from our "Ancient World" text and answered some questions together. They are using technology to compile and share their work.

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 * 10/30 || Today, the students received some additional training on the use of the Notability App. This app is a great way for the kids to take notes and keep them organized. If the students want to review the notes at home, they can loaded into googledocs or even emailed to a home account. The students also received a review of the Cornell Note process and how to identify the big ideas when they are reading from the textbook. ||
 * 10/31 || In class the students worked on a Type 2 writing assignment where I asked them to give me their opinion on the most important development or invention for prehistoric humans. The chapter they worked on this week had several choices including fire, farming, tools, and trade. After the completion of the Type 2, the group assigned each member one of new sections from the Ancient World book to read and take Cornell Notes using the Notability app they were shown yesterday.

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