"You must be the change you wish to see in the world"- Mahatma Gandhi

Monday 11/11/13:

HUG THE GLOBE!

To begin today's class, Dr. Smirnova had us participate in an around the world activity. Each of us were asked to grab the foam globe, hug it, and share two things: an issue that concerns us about geography and how we will address it in our classrooms. I shared my interest in advocating for animals around the world, whether it be through poaching, deforestation, pollution, etc. I also shared that the Dawn dish soap commercials can bring me to tears, because my love for animals is so great. I discussed that I would encourage my students to become educated about issues around the world regarding animals and become advocates for it by writing letters or signing/creating petitions. If possible, I would also create outreach activities with the community that could benefit animals such as collecting litter or volunteering at a local shelter or animal hospital.

After this engaging activity, we moved on to discussing chapter twelve of our textbooks. The notes I took during this portion of the class are posted below:

Geographical Literacy- Geographically literate citizens are aware of (1) what is happening in the world, (2) why it is happening, and  (3) how it affects other people throughout the world as well as themselves. (Sunal 371)

The Five Themes of Geography

Theme 1 : Location, Position on the Earth’s Surface. 

-Absolute or exact location other times

-General or relative location; for example

-Learning activities including the location theme help students learn to locate places in the community, state, or nation; on the earth; or on a map or a globe.

Theme 2: Place, Natural and Cultural Characteristics. 

-Natural and human features of the landscape. 

-Mountains, capital cities, and the developing world. 

-Students gather data and answer questions such as the following to help them describe place.

Theme 3: Relationships within Places, Humans and Environments. 

-The natural environment tends to limit what people can do in a place. People have been quite clever in dealing with these limitations. In dry areas where water was not sufficient to grow needed food, people found ways to import water. Today, people in dry places use advanced transportation to import food. .

Theme 4: Movement, Humans Interacting on the Earth. 

-Movement of ideas and products affects not only places of origin and destination but also places along the way. 

-Raw materials are extracted, new products are grown or produced in factories, and transportation centers are expanded or established.

-Ideas such as preservation, conservation, and democracy are being attempted in new places. 

-People travel to other nations to visit and may spend part of their lives working or living in other nations. ----There are systematic movements among the natural forces on the earth. 

-Global problems are concerns of geographers as they study movements between places and regions.

Theme 5: Regions, How They Form and Change. 

-Geographers frequently divide it into regions. Geographers study all the places and activities defined by the other four themes. Geographers begin to get a picture of how the entire world works as they investigate the interactions between regions.

-A region can be as small as an individual classroom, school, neighborhood, or community with which very young students are familiar. In this region, they can observe and investigate. .

We also participated in quiz games to test our knowledge of geography and elements associated with geography using Jognog. Jognog is a website that utilizes the principles of gameification, by creating fun quizzes that allow students to earn points/coins and forms of praise for completing the quizzes. This site could be used for creation and implementation of pre-assessment quizzes and final examinations.



Wednesday 11/13/13:

To begin today's class, we participated in an activity created by Laura, Brianna and Rachel. Prior to class, we were asked to read four different articles. In class, we were divided into four groups to explore the articles more in depth. Each group was asked to identify the article based on three quotes listed on a given worksheet. This allowed us to use our inquiry skills, which are important for students to practice within the classroom. After each group had located its article, we were asked to identify the title and author, determine if the news piece was national/global/local, and provide a summary of the article to the class. This is another important skill for students to learn, because it allows them to identify the main ideas of an article.

I thought this current event project would be fun and useful within a classroom! It is a way to have students become familiar with news around the world, as well as in the local community. This activity could be useful as a unit. Each week students could examine different sets of articles. For instance, the students could begin with local news from their community. Next, they could explore county news. Following county news, the students could move to state-wide news. The exploration of articles from this point could move to tri-state, regional, national, hemisphere and global. When the unit moves into the global piece, specific areas could be studied together (African, European, etc.).

Friday 11/15/13:

Today in class we began to work on our Native American Jigsaw projects. My group is made up of myself, Alex and Liz and we are studying the Seneca Tribe. Dr. Smirnova instructed each group to talk about: history, geography, culture, clothes, food, habitat and famous people.

The link to our PRESENTATION is here.

I think that using a jigsaw activity is an engaging way to have students learn material. The use of base and expert groups allows students to feel power in their learning and gives them an opportunity to practice skills like self-management and self-motivation to complete a task. Jigsaw learning also encourages students to work collaboratively with one another by working on skills such as listening effectively, being respectful and sharing information with others.