Geography Blog

I came across this teacher's blog at Sunset Ridge Middle School.  It would be great to use as Geography collaboration.

U.S. Government Blog

My dear friend Brenna Perry has been interning this year at Timpview High School.  I came across her U.S. Government blog today and I liked her material!  She has a lot of great ideas and resources.

Campaign Commercials

The website "The Living Room Candidate" allows you to look at different commercial ads that campaigns have used since Eisenhower.  The campaign ads are from 1958 to 2008. Students could take a trip to the computer lab and compare and contrast these commercials.   They could answer questions like the following:

How have campaign commercial stayed the same over the years?  How have they differed?
How do campaign commercials target the opponent?
Which add do you think is the most affective in 2008?
What is the campaign commercial of Jackie Kennedy in 1960 trying to do (she is speaking Spanish in the commercial)?
How do you think that the television changed presidential campaigning?
etc.

They can view the commercials themselves and read little blurbs about the candidates and the election.

Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere allows you to take a survey in your classroom using texts.  This would be great, especially in a government class where you want lots of opinions.  The link I provided takes you straight to the K-12 Teachers section of the website

Where do your taxes go?

I just discovered that the White House has a site that will tell you where your tax money goes (national defense, medicare, education, natural disaster relief, etc.)  Students could type in their income or an average American income and see where the taxes go :)

Just click here

Occupy Wall Street Video Clip

CNN just put out a video clip trying to explain the Occupy Wall Street Movement.  This could be used in a variety of ways: from protest, revolution, government, economy, etc.  I don't know how well the video explains it but it could be good.

Here it is:

Letter to Syrian First Lady

While reading CNN this morning, I learned about a video that 2 U.N. Ambassadors wives (from Britain and Germany) made.  The wives are heard reading a letter to the Syrian First Lady asking her to stand up to her husband and stop being a bystander.  People had hoped that Asma Al-Assad, the first lady, would bring a good Western influence on Syra.  Asma attended college in London (majoring in computer science) and worked in business there before marrying the Syrian President in 2000.  Despite people's hopes, Asma has remained next to her husband through his controversial reign.

The two U.N. wives made the following video and put it on YouTube to ask Asma to act.  The video has contrasting images between Asma's life of style and poise and the horrors that other Syrian mothers face.




This seems especially appropriate seeing as we just learned about how the U.N. can help African countries.  At the end of the clip, the U.N. wives ask people everywhere to send similar letters of their own to the first lady. 

Worse Than War--PBS Special

PBS made a video called Worse Than War.  Wendy King, another Timpview High School teacher, recommended this as another option to watch besides Hotel Rwanda.

I have not watched the film but I think it looks at the Holocaust/Genocides in the world.  It is just under 2 hours long.

Click here for a link to the website or watch the video below.

Watch Worse Than War on PBS. See more from Worse Than War.