This is a group project used as a final assessment for SOC 101 dual credit course (high school and college credit)
Social Studies
Applying Introductory Knowledge of GDP
This lesson introduces students to Macroeconomics through practicing the application of GDP. Students read two articles from The Economist. One of the articles profiles El Salvador and the role of GDP in creating an understanding of the role of crime in El Salvador’s economy. This lesson provides an opportunity for helping students understand the relevance of economics to larger social and political controversies — specifically the debate about migration from Central America to the United States.
Team Juggling
Lesson Instructions This lesson/unit can be a single lesson, multi-lesson, full unit, and/or a “Challenge” competition. Teacher choice! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij-3VO5AiUQ Materials: 5 balls/objects in variety of shapes and sizes. I use beanbag, 8 inch foam (covered) ball, stuffed ball (like stuffed animal), beach balll, knobby ball, and/or e-z grab ball. Sometimes (for fun!) I also used […]
Making Money in Education
Who says you can’t make money teaching? Each year I use a token economy as a system to encourage students to help in the classroom with attitude and work, and in the first day of school we make coins out of homemade dough with ¾” PVC to roll stamp them out with. It’s nice to have some textures to press in the dough, too. That’s what I call rolling in the dough! Or, at least, rolling it out.
In preparation you can read “The Story of Money” by Betsy Maestro, which actually can take a couple of hours to get through orally, or you can give a brief history of money from Wikipedia or this nice concise version from PBS. Any of these can also be read or introduced during the making of the money. The idea, though, of working together on a physical task, is that it allows conversation to happen, and we are the people who also teach how to be a person.
Big Words; Big Ideas
Essential Question- How do the things that Martin Luther King Jr. said in the 1960’s, during the Civil Rights Movement, relate to our lives today?
Lesson Summary- Students will review what they already know about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. based on previous classroom activities and discussions. The instructor will read the book “Martin’s Big Words”, asking students to think about how the things Dr. King said relate to their own lives. Students will then choose from a sampling of preselected quotes by Dr. King and draw a picture showing what that quote means to them. The lesson will conclude with reviewing the song “We Shall Overcome” and thinking about the lyrics in light of what we have learned.