• Time Traveler Web Quest (Updated – I hope!)

• Pectin (the stuff that makes jelly jellyish) uses dextrose (a corn product)
• Cultures (Bacteria used in some foods) grown on corn
• Iodized Salt (some brands use dextrose)
• Colorings (many brown and caramel colors are corn based)
• Corn syrup or high fructose Corn syrup is  popular sweetner

Corn is also an important component of Animal Feed. If your diet includes:

• Beef
• Chicken
• Eggs
• Milk
• Pork

You are eating “processed corn”. All of these animals are fed corn based products when they farmed on a large scale.

Much of the corn that is produced in the USA is genetically modified to resist certain pesticides and diseases. The use of GMO (genetically modified corn) as well as the widespread use of corn is a controversial issue for many people concerned with out food supply and our agricultural bio-diversity. Check out this movie for one perspective: King Corn

General Links

• Supreme Court Home Page
• Oyez – Supreme Court Multi Media
• Student Supreme Court Cases – Cases that relate to student rights
• Landmark Cases – This site offers different reading levels for a variety of cases

New Jersey v. T.L.O

• Wikipedia Overview
• Oyez.com case overview – including recording of oral arguments!
  

Safford Unified School District v. Redding

• Wikipedia Overview
• Oyez case Overview – Including recording of oral arguments

Tinker v. Des Moines

• Wikipedia Overview
• Oyez Case Overview – Including recording of oral arguments

Bethel v. Fraser

• Wikipedia Overview
• Oyez Case Overview – Including recording of oral arguments

Morse v. Frederick

• Wikipedia Overview
• Oyez Case Overview – Including recording of oral arguments

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld

• Wikipedia Overview
• Oyez Case Overview – Including recording of oral arguments

I have, I am embarrassed to say, given little thought to these questions. For a teacher of Social Studies this is an egregious oversight. The Washington State Grade Level Expectations clearly state that the ability to analyze is a critical component of what students should know and be able to do. It would seem that a skill so elemental to a content area would be a focus of strategies in the same way that the ability to write persuasively or to read for meaning drive much language arts instruction.

Analysis skills are part and parcel of many Social Studies methods. Authentic inquiry is impossible without analysis as are any truly effective debate or discussion activities. The problem is not that students are not analyzing it is that the analysis is a skill that is hidden behind the product and content of the work. It is not taught as a stand-alone concept and as such remains something that may be explicitly assessed and not explicitly taught.

Last year, during some departmental meetings, I started to play around with the idea of codifying the tasks an effective thinker completes as part of effective analysis. This was the end of a longer process that started with my struggle to get students to move beyond comparing and contrasting. The list below shows the basic structure of what I have come up with, but in no way is a exhaustive.

An approach to analyzing…

The process of analysis has a deceptively simple definition. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as the separation of a whole into its component parts. This simple process of breakdown becomes quite complex when the nature of the whole or of the part is not clearly delineated or the components are not easily knowable. The application of analysis to complex historical or philosophical problems demands layers of related analytic processes that all point back to the same issue. Consider the task of understanding analysis.

To define this word I will have to introduce and define other concepts which in turn will have their own dependant concepts. This could go on ad infinitum (or nauseum). Regardless of the complexity the structure of the analytic task remains quite consistent. Five steps emerge, that when completed assure that effective analysis has taken place.

Step 1 – Observation / Research

The first step involves the collection of information. What can you learn about the object, issue or idea that you are analyzing? The process of observation can literally be observational. In case of an artifact, photograph or document simply looking at the item can generate valuable information that can be used in the process of analysis. More commonly the process or observation takes the form of research; using other sources to construct a factual understanding of the object of the analysis.

Step 2 – Information Assessment

Once a set of information has been gathered the information must be assessed to determine if it is adequate. Do you know enough about he object of the analysis to make any substantive statement about its components? If not, more observation is required. If the information is adequate than the process moves on.

Step 3 – Application of Logic

This is where things get tricky. Analysis demands that an explanation be offered. The validity of the explanation depends on the facts that underlie it and the relationship between these facts. This is where techniques like comparing and contrasting, pushing to logical extremes or the scientific method become useful as tools of analysis. Formal logic, though sometimes specious, can be useful as well.

Step 4 – Drawing specific conclusion

Spell it out. How does the information collected and the logical framework constructed directly relate to the specific issue in question. If you are analyzing the causes of the recent recession, the explanation should comment only on the recent recession, not on other recessions and not on recessions in general. This is a tough concept for many students to adhere to. I am not sure why, but we have a tendency to generalize too liberally and sometimes without warrant.

Step 5 – Generalizing

You’ve gathered information, assessed it, given is logical structure in support of an explanation of a specific object of analysis. Now you recycle that logic and consider other similar objects of analysis. Does the explanation at the heart of the analysis still apply? If it does then extend your explanation to these objects as well.

It seems like almost all social studies teachers give some sort of current events assignment at some point in their career. I have struggled with this type of assignment because it is often given as homework and becomes irrelevant to the students. While tearing out sod from the front yard this morning, I had an idea about how to use google earth as a platform for current events. The way I have it here is envisioned as part of a Washington state history course (Seattle Neighborhood Blogs), but this concept could be applied to any collection of online news sources.

The Idea

The basic idea is that students will download a google map file like this to access a series of sources. Students would then complete some documentation and analysis using these sources. The application of google earth could allow students to build understading of some of the 5 themes of geography in the process of doing their current event work.

Students would access this work through a class webpage or wiki. Check out the demo I set up on my class blog.

Objectives

Working in google earth students will:

• Students will learn how to create place markers
  
• Students will learn how to insert hyperlinks into place markers
• Students will learn how to save .kmz files
  

In order to do these things students will already need to be able to navigate in google earth and use the search bar to find locations. It is also helpful if they can turn on an off layers. In my mind students need a day to play with the software and a day to do the work.

Sample: Summer Vacation

Process:

Students will choose 5 locations that they visited this summer. For each location they will create a place marker with a short description of the place. They need to include at least 3 hyperlinks for the project. Each place marker description does not need a hyperlink. As an extension students can use html tags to embed the link into the text.

Corn

Corn probably developed in the highlands of central Mexico (the debates rage – some would include Guatemala) as a grass and was cultivated into a domesticated grain about 7ooo years ago. Evidence in ruins found from Copper Canyon in the South to the San Juan River in the north show evidence of corn based trade and migration. This migration continued into the northeastern portion of the America’s. Corn cultivation in northeast has been thriving for the last 1000 years.

Columbus returned to Europe with corn seed stalk. Corn was cultivated and soon spread throughout the European continent. It took about a century but corn became a staple grain in Europe.

Tomatoes

To find indigenous tomatoes one has to travel even further south to Peru. A member of the night shade family, wild tomatoes grew in the Peruvian highlands. This plant produced small green fruit. There is some evidence that pre-historic humans transported the tomatoe plant to central Mexico.

The Aztecs propagated the first modern tomato, a small yellow fruit they called “‘xitomatl”. Tomatoes eventually were transported to Europe. There is a running debate over who brought the tomatoes to Europe firs, Columbus or Cortez. The first mention of tomatoes in European literature shows up in the writings of Italian physicist and botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli. He gave the aztec “‘xitomatl” the name pomi d’oro (golden apple). Tomatoes were quickily incorporated into the Mediterranean diet and were soon a staple.

Olives and more to come!

Here is a teacher tube feed:

Here are links to some free wiki sites:

http://www.pbwiki.com

http://www.wetpaint.com

http://www.wikispaces.com

Here are links to some current Eckstein Wiki pages:

Eck111 – Mr. Baughn / Ms. Gedansky

Ecks208 – Mr. Miller / Ms. Falls

Eck111planning – Team 7b humanities planning

Here is the ppt. from the training:  Wikis for fun and profit