Social Studies: Invention (40 Points)

• Propose a new invention.
  • 1st, explain a need that you think exists in society.
  • 2nd, explain what your invention does to meet that need and who you expect to sell it to.
  • 3rd, draw your invention.
  • 4th, create an advertisement (can be a poster, magazine ad, TV commercial, etc.) to sell your invention. Make it colorful and appealing.
• Your invention, of course, must be brand new, not something that someone else has already made.
• For extra credit, actually make your invention and bring it in.
• It’s due on Tuesday, 1/31/12, so you have plenty of time to make it awesome.

Social Studies: A New Industrial Revolution (25 Points)

• Read pp. 608-613 in the textbook and answer the questions on A New Industrial Revolution.

Social Studies: Jacob Riis Photo Analysis (10 Points)

• Follow the procedure on the Jacob Riis Photo Analysis sheet to deeply analyze one of Jacob Riis’ photos of lower class immigrants from the late 1800s and early 1900s.
  • For information on Jacob Riis, click here.

IMSA FUSION: Week 12 Reflection

• Unit: Your Sense-Sational Senses – Pathways to Learning
• Lesson: The Learning Environment and the Learner
• What do you perceive to be the strength of each lesson presented?
  • Students were able to conduct a comparative study of the case of Genie, which they learned about in Weeks 9 and 10, and actual scientific experiments of brain activity in rats.
• What evidence do you have (qualitative or quantitative) that students understood the concepts presented?
  • All the students graphed and discussed dendrite data according to rat brain activity as displayed in diagrams. Students clearly demonstrated their understanding of the connection between brain activity and social isolation in both the rats and in the case of Genie. Students were able to identify which variables were healthiest and most damaging to the brain. They determined that socialization and stimulus were the most important variables as rats in cages with other rats and those with toys showed the greatest brain activity, but those lacking both registered the lowest brain activity.
• What other student learning took place?
  • Students increased their own brains via socialization and stimulation when they chatted and played with the Smart Board. Additionally, students were curious about the number of dendrites in rat brains as compared to human brains.
• Other comments: An adult human brain weighs between 1,300 and 1,400 grams. A rat brain weighs around 2 grams. A viper has a brain of 0.1 gram. If you remind a viper of that, he or she may bite you.

FLEX Enrichment: Must Call/Text Between 2 & 4 AM for Flour Babies

• To increase the level of difficulty and further simulate a baby waking you up in the middle of the night, you now must call or text (twice in a 15-minute span if it’s a text) Mr. Rosentel between 2 and 4 AM this week.
• Continue to complete your Feeding, Changing, and Babysitting Log every day and write your Flour Baby Daily Journal every night.

Social Studies: Sweatshops (10 Points)

• Read Rose Cohen: First Day in a Sweatshop and the excerpts from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.
• As you read, answer the questions on the Sweatshops worksheet.

Social Studies: State of the Union (Extra Credit)

• Tonight, President Obama will give his State of the Union speech to Congress, which will air on many TV stations tonight at 8 PM. Check your local TV listings. You can also watch it on the White House website, even after it plays.
  • According to the Constitution,”[The President] shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” With only a few exceptions, every sitting President since George Washington has given a State of the Union address each year, although they were written rather than spoken until the 20th century. For more information, check out this history by Gerhard Peters and the American Presidency Project at University of California, Santa Barbara.
• Watch this year’s State of the Union and write a summary of Obama’s speech.
  • Your summary must be at least 1 full, 5-sentence paragraph and include the main points that Obama hits in his speech.

Social Studies: Child Labor & Immigration (30 Points)

• Complete all 3 parts of Child Labor and Immigration.
  • Play the Immigration Game that we played in class today and preview the virtual tour of a New York City tenement that we’ll take tomorrow.

FLEX Enrichment: Teen Pregnancy PSA (12 Major Points)

• Objective: Create a Public Service Announcement to convince your peers to help prevent teen pregnancy.
• First, figure out what you want people to think and feel about teen pregnancy. Then, design a commercial to give them those thoughts and emotions.
• In your group, write out each of the steps below:

1. Describe the scene (what it looks and sounds like).
2. List the characters and props.
3. Write the dialogue and stage directions.
4. Explain the message.

• You will be graded according to this rubric.
• Tomorrow, we will finish the script and practice acting each script out. On Thursday, we will vote on the PSA we will film, so come prepared.
• View an excellent example of a PSA from last year’s Enrichment class (the audio is muffled, but it’s very creative).

Check out the 2011 Year in Review Timeline in Comics

After organizing their own timelines of major events in 2011, students each designed a comic of a single event. The 2011 Year in Review Timeline in Comics highlights these event-based comics in chronological order. If you’re wondering why it’s not called the 2011 Comic Timeline since that would be a lot less wordy, you should recall the wisdom of President Bartlet‘s family from West Wing: “In my house, anyone who used one word when they could have used ten just isn’t trying hard.”

    

To view more photos of the timeline, click this link.