Recently my class spent time on the global economics portion of our curriculum. I typically do not use full - length films because the students lose focus easily (I prefer shorter clips) but this documentary published by Frontline for PBS was just too good to pass up.
The documentary is "Is Wal-Mart Good for America?" and it shows how Wal-Mart as a corporation rose to success by relying on international trade. It really brings up a lot of good points and uses a lot of our vocabulary in action (trade deficit, for example). I recommend this documentary, which is approximately one hour and streams from the web without downloads (perfect for our smart boards).
Wal-Mart full length documentary from Frontline PBS
I recommend guiding questions for your students. This helps them keep up and understand what is going on in the movie. I also stopped between "chapters" to summarize with the students.
Because my school is doing an all-class writing initiative, I used this movie as a prompt. I asked the students to answer the title's question of whether Wal-Mart was good for America. They could pick either side but they needed to stick with that side and use details from our lectures and the movie. I found the class was split down the middle, which was interesting.
Submitted by Kathryn Jasper, Central HS
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Chart and map for use in teaching agriculture
source: CIA Factbook
We're teaching the economy portion of the curriculum currently. Before break, I taught about economic activities - emphasizing the difference in the four types of activities. To tie that lesson in to our lesson today on agriculture, I found the above chart online, which I put in my power point lesson. It shows the decline of primary activity as the world has become less reliant on subsistence agriculture and more reliant on commercial agriculture. I asked the students if we are eating less - they said no.. in fact, the world is consuming more food due to population growth. Yet the distribution of employees in the primary sector is down. This emphasized the shift to commercial farming.
The second graphic featured is a map of agricultural output. The dots show, in size and color, the amount of food and other agricultural products that are produced and exported by country. In our lesson on subsistence versus commercial farming, we looked at which countries still rely on subsistence farming (and why). This map helped emphasize that point.
**Both images are copyright free and available for use. For the full file instead of copy/pasting, go to this link.
Posted by Kathryn Jasper, Central HS
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Religion - Current Events link
I am currently in the Religion unit of our curriculum. I found an excellent article from this past summer (June 2009) that ties directly into what my students have been pondering - the role of religion in culture and how being an "American" or whatever nationality one may be ties in with being "Christian" or "Muslim" or so on. We've talked a lot about the seperation of church and state, the fact that our money says "In God We Trust," and that our pledge says "One nation, under God."
Yet I find that when we take the situation away from something so close to home, my students understand it better. In fact, when talking about immigration, I used Eastern European immigrants flooding the Western European countries post-Soviet era (thinking back to my Geography 101 days and "the nurse and the plumber" ads from France) to explain one side to immigration policies (immigrants taking over jobs). Once it was seperated from America and the students were forced to think about other countries as the involved parties, they could be a lot less biased and a lot more academic.
The same goes for religion and state. This article:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/06/30/france.burkas.al.qaeda/index.html
is about France debating forbiding French Muslim women from wearing a burqa. It tells France's viewpoint as well as al -Qaeda, who apparently released a statement regarding the matter. I plan on printing it out and having my students read and discuss it. Just wanted to pass it along!
Posted by Kathryn Jasper, Central HS
Yet I find that when we take the situation away from something so close to home, my students understand it better. In fact, when talking about immigration, I used Eastern European immigrants flooding the Western European countries post-Soviet era (thinking back to my Geography 101 days and "the nurse and the plumber" ads from France) to explain one side to immigration policies (immigrants taking over jobs). Once it was seperated from America and the students were forced to think about other countries as the involved parties, they could be a lot less biased and a lot more academic.
The same goes for religion and state. This article:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/06/30/france.burkas.al.qaeda/index.html
is about France debating forbiding French Muslim women from wearing a burqa. It tells France's viewpoint as well as al -Qaeda, who apparently released a statement regarding the matter. I plan on printing it out and having my students read and discuss it. Just wanted to pass it along!
Posted by Kathryn Jasper, Central HS
Thursday, November 12, 2009
360 degree World
Today, I taught my introduction to religion. I wanted the kids to be able to visualize the religions and make them more than words - make them come alive. I also wanted to use my smart board.
I found a site that incorporated both wishes: 360cities.net
It is featured in Google Earth but I find that the website is easier to navigate. It shows 360 degree photography of all sorts of sites all over the Earth. I can see myself showing a different 360 site every single day!
Today, I showed the kids three sites: The Nengen Buddhist temple in China, the Taj Mahal in India, and a mosque in Iran. You can actually go inside and explore the sites as if you were there.
I definitely recommend using this site. They have a map with placemarks for every 360 site they have and so you can pick out places around the world. When teaching about the desert, for example, you could take the kids to the Namib desert. They have rainforests from Madagascar, street scenes from China, and more. Go there!!
Posted by Kathryn Jasper, Central HS
I found a site that incorporated both wishes: 360cities.net
It is featured in Google Earth but I find that the website is easier to navigate. It shows 360 degree photography of all sorts of sites all over the Earth. I can see myself showing a different 360 site every single day!
Today, I showed the kids three sites: The Nengen Buddhist temple in China, the Taj Mahal in India, and a mosque in Iran. You can actually go inside and explore the sites as if you were there.
I definitely recommend using this site. They have a map with placemarks for every 360 site they have and so you can pick out places around the world. When teaching about the desert, for example, you could take the kids to the Namib desert. They have rainforests from Madagascar, street scenes from China, and more. Go there!!
Posted by Kathryn Jasper, Central HS
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Labelling Maps
With our smart boards, we always want to be making sure to utilize the materials we have. One way I do this is by labelling maps on the smart board. Here's my process:
1) Pass out copies of the continent's map printed off this website. I print the blank ones and make enough copies for each student.
2) I use the Nystrom atlas class set to have the students label their own map. I instruct them to label the countries, give them the number, and tell them how many countries to have (some forget the little countries). Once they are done labelling, they are to shade in the countries (we learn about how political maps have colors for each country to represent boundaries) and cut/paste the map into their notebook (so they won't lose it).
3) I pull up the exact same map on my smartboard. I then have students label the countries using the smart board interactive software and pens. This allows the students to play with the smartboard (they love doing that) and check their map at the same time.
Posted by Kathryn Jasper, Central HS
1) Pass out copies of the continent's map printed off this website. I print the blank ones and make enough copies for each student.
2) I use the Nystrom atlas class set to have the students label their own map. I instruct them to label the countries, give them the number, and tell them how many countries to have (some forget the little countries). Once they are done labelling, they are to shade in the countries (we learn about how political maps have colors for each country to represent boundaries) and cut/paste the map into their notebook (so they won't lose it).
3) I pull up the exact same map on my smartboard. I then have students label the countries using the smart board interactive software and pens. This allows the students to play with the smartboard (they love doing that) and check their map at the same time.
Posted by Kathryn Jasper, Central HS
Diffusion Activity
Good morning, World Geography teachers!
Last week I taught about diffusion. To explain the idea of globalization of American culture and diffusion of culture, I used a lesson I created about McDonalds. I started the lesson teaching about cultural diffusion patterns. To reinforce this, I did the following activity with my students:
1) Put a timeline of McDonald's history on the power point slide - from the creation of the first McDonalds to it being bought by Ray Kroc to it expanding outside the US to the number of McDonald's worldwide today
2) Put this map on the board - it shows the diffusion of McDonald's around the world. The initial location countries are red (Canada and the US), the first phase of expansion is orange (Australia, Great Britain, Japan, Panama), and so on.
- on this slide, I had the students interpret the map to understand how to read the map
- we then talked about why certain countries got McDonald's before others (cultural connections like military bases, common background, etc)\
- we talked about which countries still did not have McDonald's and why (poverty, negative feelings about the US, etc)
3) Used the book What the World Eats (purchased with Title One money from my school) to get statistics on the number of McDonald's worldwide. I chose 7 countries and used their 2003 data:
•Australia – 726
•China – 602
•Ecuador – 10
•Egypt – 40
•Mexico – 261
•Turkey – 81
•United States – 13, 491
I had students take the data and make a bar graph to display the number of McDonald's in certain countries worldwide.
4) For fun, I showed pictures of McDonald's around the world and how they've adapted their architecture for the different societies. Also, I showed example menus from McDonald's around the world (for example, the Maharaja McChicken sandwich in India, where they don't eat beef).
**Note: when teaching about food in our study of culture, here is a great website - it is a TIME series from the author of Hungry Planet that has a slideshow of families with their food for the week. It would be great to show on our smartboards http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519,00.html
Posted by Kathryn Jasper, Central HS
Last week I taught about diffusion. To explain the idea of globalization of American culture and diffusion of culture, I used a lesson I created about McDonalds. I started the lesson teaching about cultural diffusion patterns. To reinforce this, I did the following activity with my students:
1) Put a timeline of McDonald's history on the power point slide - from the creation of the first McDonalds to it being bought by Ray Kroc to it expanding outside the US to the number of McDonald's worldwide today
2) Put this map on the board - it shows the diffusion of McDonald's around the world. The initial location countries are red (Canada and the US), the first phase of expansion is orange (Australia, Great Britain, Japan, Panama), and so on.
- on this slide, I had the students interpret the map to understand how to read the map
- we then talked about why certain countries got McDonald's before others (cultural connections like military bases, common background, etc)\
- we talked about which countries still did not have McDonald's and why (poverty, negative feelings about the US, etc)
3) Used the book What the World Eats (purchased with Title One money from my school) to get statistics on the number of McDonald's worldwide. I chose 7 countries and used their 2003 data:
•Australia – 726
•China – 602
•Ecuador – 10
•Egypt – 40
•Mexico – 261
•Turkey – 81
•United States – 13, 491
I had students take the data and make a bar graph to display the number of McDonald's in certain countries worldwide.
4) For fun, I showed pictures of McDonald's around the world and how they've adapted their architecture for the different societies. Also, I showed example menus from McDonald's around the world (for example, the Maharaja McChicken sandwich in India, where they don't eat beef).
**Note: when teaching about food in our study of culture, here is a great website - it is a TIME series from the author of Hungry Planet that has a slideshow of families with their food for the week. It would be great to show on our smartboards http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519,00.html
Posted by Kathryn Jasper, Central HS
Purpose
Welcome to the Memphis City Schools blog for World Geography. The purpose of this blog is to provide a toolkit for lessons to be used in World Geography classrooms. The World Geography cohort at Memphis City Schools is a strong, team-based group of teachers who enjoy sharing and expanding on each other's lessons. This space will be a place where lessons can be explained, links to helpful sites can be shared, and questions can be answered.
For importing powerpoints and other files, the google group created for World Geography will be utilized. There may be references to that google group - it is a closed group designed for World Geography teachers in the Memphis City School system.
In each blog post, please title your post with the topic of your lesson. Explain the lesson you are sharing, including as much detail as you would like. To link, when creating the post hit the link button in the control panel. This will create an active link. Make sure to sign your name at the end of your post so that we all know who we can credit for the great lesson!
For importing powerpoints and other files, the google group created for World Geography will be utilized. There may be references to that google group - it is a closed group designed for World Geography teachers in the Memphis City School system.
In each blog post, please title your post with the topic of your lesson. Explain the lesson you are sharing, including as much detail as you would like. To link, when creating the post hit the link button in the control panel. This will create an active link. Make sure to sign your name at the end of your post so that we all know who we can credit for the great lesson!
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