Social+Studies+Ideas

Type in the content of your page here. ** Thoughts/Ideas on Cybercamp/RPBL ** Here are some ideas I collected/hatched from reading //Reinventing Project-Based Learning// and/or Cybercamp.

COOL! I downloaded this onto my home computer Tuesday night, and then of course had to play with it. Checked out stuff like: what Nassau, Key West, and Longmont (all the exotic places, of course) look like from the satellite; played with scrolling around, spinning the world, north vs. south, ground level, what it looks like below the surface of the Atlantic, etc. I found my neighborhood, and then my house! Some questions occurred to me to use with students if I can figure out a way to use Google Earth in my class (considering the district download restrictions): v How does this work? v During what season were these images taken? v What can you tell about my neighborhood/house from the images? v What can’t you tell about my neighborhood/house from the images? v Why can’t you see my front door on the satellite image? v How might a mapmaker use this technology? v What do the little changing numbers at the bottom of the picture mean? v What do those numbers tell us?
 * __ Google Earth __**

Students need to learn/understand/demonstrate mapmaking skills. Since this year I’ll have 6th graders, I’ll probably start with a map of my classroom/hallway/school, and then have students create a map of their trips from home to school. I see this activity leading to discussions about the components of maps: compass rose, orientation, resolution, distortion, projection, scale, latitude and longitude, legend, title, labeling, key, etc. in much greater detail. I hope that this approach would provide both the necessary framework for a study of map-making tools, and opportunities for inquiry that I try to incorporate in my classroom. After we have explored the geographer’s tools and vocabulary (including having groups of kids just examine lots of different maps—thanks, National Geographic!), it would be time for students to revisit their maps from home to school. The second map would be the summative assessment (making the first one a formative one), and these two pieces of work would make a great addition to the students’ 1st quarter portfolios for our student-led conferences in late September/early October.  If you have time and want to introduce Google Maps, you could then have kids plot their path and calculate the actual distance. I threw one together called Home to School that has two routes. If you view this map in Earth if you can get absolute locations. I can't figure out how to get the link to open without me signing in to Google Maps yet. I can show you at camp if interensted. Mick Vocabulary Strategies __** In the past, I’ve used a 4-column vocabulary template: 1st column: write the word and book/page number where the word occurred 2nd column: definition of the word 3rd column: symbol/illustration of the word 4th column: student definition, example, or explanation in own words This year I want students to use one of their composition notebooks for vocabulary, so they would use the template to keep a record of all the vocabulary we do over the course of the year (for the 1st semester and end-of-year’s final exams). Then students would work in groups to look over each other’s vocab work, and decide what illustration and definition the group thinks is best. Once every week or two, a member of each group would update their group’s addition to the 6th grade wiki, and other classes would have access to all definitions. With an authentic audience and an element of competition and creativity, this might improve student involvement and homework completion percentages. I hope it would also result in better/clearer/more useful definitions, with students actually processing the word and its meaning, and then creating their own meaning (as opposed to just copying definitions from the book, and still not knowing what the word means.)
 * __ Mapmaking skills __**
 * __

I didn’t like the acronym my school colleagues made up for the 5 themes in the book, so I made up my own: **L**ong’s **P**eak **H**as **M**any **R**ocks. On Roger’s suggestion, I may tie the current events (and each quarter’s project) to one or more of these themes, including having students pick 1-2 themes for each, as a way to categorize and link the information they’re learning. By the end of the year, they would have focused on each theme at least once in their presentations.
 * __ 5 Themes of Geography __**
 * L: LOCATION** (absolute, relative, latitude/longitude, cardinal directions, etc.)
 * P: PLACE** (physical and human features)
 * H: HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION** (physical characteristics, how humans affect and are affected by their environment)
 * M: MOVEMENT** (how people, ideas, and goods get from one place to another)
 * R: REGIONS** (unifying characteristics of a place, often used for comparison)

Maybe for the first day of school (which has SO MUCH of talking and rules in every class, and it’s also our “Back to School” Night--?!?), maybe I’ll break the mold and let them just do a survey. Where have you traveled? How often do you go someplace? What do you like about the trip? What don’t you like about it? Do they speak another language there? Do you speak it? How do you get there? Where do you stay? What do you do? Do you want to go back? Why? Where would you like to go? Why? Etc. Radical, I know. But I think I’m gonna do it.
 * __ 1st Day of School Survey __**

I think I want kids to check links to different news sources (I had always thought of just using newspapers, but now I can see that as very limiting). Maybe put them in current events teams, and have one kid “surf” a link or two for 5 minutes at the beginning of class (maybe letting them “skip” the opener? I’ll have to think about that) each day, and then give groups a few minutes on Fridays to digest/discuss/connect some of the information they’ve found to what we’re doing in class. Then each class could post on the blog a summary of the “top story” of the week, which would encourage analysis, synthesis, investigation, comparison, persuasion, etc. It seems like that would be very engaging and empowering. Maybe students would even need to choose their project topics based on the connections we make with current events?
 * __ Current Events __**