AJUSD Social Studies

The College Board today announced the release of redesigned AP programs for U.S. history and physics, with a focus on reducing the amount of content coverage required to allow more time for studying key concepts in greater depth. Schools will offer the revised courses starting in fall 2014.

The emphasis on covering less material in greater depth surely rings a bell with lots of this blog's readers, given that this is a core mantra these days, emphasized, for example, in the Common Core State Standards in mathematics, as well as the common science standards now being developed by a coalition of states and others.

Topics covered in Physics 1 include Newtonian mechanics; work, energy, and power; and mechanical waves and sounds. Physics 2 covers fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism, optics, and atomic and nuclear physics.

The guide to the new standards

What it is:  The Miniature Earth Project is a great website that poses the question: “what if the population of the Earth were reduced into a community of only 100 people?”  Based on this assumption, the site helps students understand what the breakdown of nationalities would be, religious representation, how many people would live in an urban area, how many people would have the majority of the world income, how many would live without clean world, those that live on less than $1.25/day, etc.  The purpose of the site is to break our quickly approaching 7billion people in the world down to a number (100) that we can more easily wrap our minds around.  The point of the site is to help kids (and adults) understand the real landscape of the world and cause positive action.

“Understanding our rights and responsibilities as individuals and the similarities and differences of others helps contribute to the development of world citizens.”

What it is:  History Pin is a really neat website that lets students (and anyone) electronically “pin” historical pictures, videos, audio clips, and stories to a digital globe.  There are three main ways to use History Pin: exploring it, adding to it, or curating things on it

How to integrate History Pin into the classroom: History Pin is a neat place for students to learn about history.  They can see history through pictures, video and stories submitted by people around the world.  History Pin is also a fantastic place for students to demonstrate learning.  They can add pins, create collections or tours around their learning.

To help make teaching about the upcoming U.S. elections easy for you and fun for your students, Mimio has created a guide with lesson plans, and downloadable interactive lessons for K-12 social studies classes.

Welcome to #KidVote Mock Election for the upcoming US Presidential Election in November 2012.

DEADLINE TO SIGN UP: Friday, October 19, 2012. This will allow my students have time to prepare everything they need to track the data, and more importantly, get it shared on Election Day!

Thank you all for taking this event to the next level for our students. A mock election is fun, but a mock election shared with the whole country? THAT’s what 21st century learning is all about: collaboration and authentic experiences!