Making the Elections Relavent

As this year's Elections draw closer and closer do your students really know what is going on?

With all of the ads on TV, radio and the internet it may be difficult for your students to see the big picture as you explain the election process to them.

Although this can be discussed in all grade levels it is more prevalent right now for students that are in the eighth grade. How might you ask?

Students in the eighth grade are currently learning about the Revolutionary War and the events that happened immediately afterwards. Those events helped to lead us to our first Presidential election. Again you may be asking why is this an important event in the lives of these students. The answer is simple, during the next elections cycle they will be High School Seniors and may have the opportunity to vote. So it is important for them to understand the process and how they can make a difference if they choose to vote, remembering to tell them that it is their choice.

Here are some resources that can help make the difference in how your students perceive the Elections and how they can get involved and make it relevant to their lives.

• Have your students create Political Cartoons using this Arts Edge Lesson that brings in a cross curricular component to the normal Social Studies curriculum.  As well Arts Edge has a great Lesson on the Election Process to help enhance your instruction on how the process works.
•  You can use Read Write Think as a launch point to provide a number of resources on the Election Cycle and ways to get your students involved.  Some of these resources discuss using Avatars to create political cartoon skits.
• You can use this Themed Resource page from Smithsonian's History Explorer to give your students some more background on the election process.  See how Mass Media plays a role in the election process with this resource from Smithsonian. 
• Try all of these resources that Thinkfinity has gathered together for you regarding the election process.
• Here are a lot of Election Lesson plans and activities from EDSITEment that go along with the Social Studies curriculum.

So even though I am talking to all you eighth grade teachers out there, anyone can utilize these resources to help make the elections relevant to your students by having them become involved through some of these activities.

This will help drive home the importance of the subject material and even help them to understand the current events that are going on in the world around them.


photo credit: The Suss-Man (Mike) via photopin cc

Tweeting to Disaster

I, to make a bad joke, ran across this article this morning about the upcoming 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  The History Press has launched a new Twitter account to chronicle the days leading up to and including the faithful night that the UN-Sinkable ship sank in the waters of the North Atlantic.

You can follow the timeline through the hashtag #TitanicVoyage (@titanicrealtime), and even from some of the people that were a part of the launch like #crew, #engineering, #captain to hear their thought and accounts of the events that led up to that now infamous night of April 15, 1912. Currently the timeline was setup on March 10, 2012 to begin the chronicling of the events.  There are just a few tweets out there now from the captain, crew, engineering and officer but as the time gets closer to the launch date we should start seeing the timeline fill up.  Currently there are almost 13k followers of the site.

This could be a great lesson starter for you Social Studies classes where the students can follow along with the feed as things are happening to see what it would have been like if Twitter was around during that time for people to be able to send out updates as they were happening.  We find it so often now with other natural disasters that we are getting updates from Tweets faster than we can get news crews into areas.  It will be very interesting to see how things unfold through tweets over the next month.  Maybe to see if there will be tweets coming from what would be passengers as well as the crew for their thoughts on what will, or rather has happened.

** Update **
I just got some new information that I needed to add to this post.  The information that is being Tweeted out is, and will be coming directly from the ships log books.

Interactive Social Studies for PreK-5

One thing that I have heard from Elementary teachers, while I have been training on Interactive Whiteboards, is that there are not a lot of activities out there for Social Studies that will utilize the IWB to its abilities. They are looking for quick activities that they can use to either start or reinforce a lesson with.

PBS offers a lot of online interactive activities to aid teachers in getting their students engaged in learning.

Here is a sampling for PreK-2 Teachers
1. Build a Neighborhood - Allows students to create their own neighborhood
2. Coast to Coast - Test students knowledge of Geography in the US
3. Connect the States - A matching game that helps students learn flags, animals, foods and other facts about states.
4. Connect the World - A matching game that helps students learn flags, animals, foods and other facts about other countries.
5. On the Job - A matching game where you pick the best tool that goes with the worker.

Here is a sampling for 3-5 Teachers
1. Sticker Race - Analyze the bumper stickers from around the US
2. Mapping the West - Discover how the land west of the Mississippi was divided prior to the Louisiana Purchase.
3. Search for the Lost Cave People: Be an Archaeologist - Examine why clay is a good material for making containers.
4. Secrets of Lost Empires II: Construct an Aqueduct - Determine where to place the Aqueduct in your Roman City.
5. Be your Own Boss - Learn how good decision making can help you run a successful business.

This is just a sampling of some of the Interactive Activities that PBS offers that you could use on your Interactive Whiteboard. Check out PBS Teachers for more information and activities.