EU464 Social Studies Electronic Toolkit

Here are a couple engaging videos that clearly illustrate how reaching the 7 billionth person on the earth will have an impact on our students. Also showing who the typical earthling looks, and lives. A great video for grade 8 geography...

Here is the other video which works well with it... The World's Most Typical Person http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/10/28/141792664/find-your-spot-among-worlds-7-billion-and-meet-the-most-typical-person

Interesting journal article which sources recent research in brain research and research on constructivist theory to argue that the reflective inquiry tradition of social studies which has been shown to be a powerful model for developing a citizenship centered education, has been for the most part been unfulfilled in many social studies curriculum documents and classrooms. The article is important for any educational minister or teachers who are involved in developing curriculum for social studies. Article also gives some background and reasoning for ensuring that the students play an active role in conducting in class investigation well the teacher's acts as facilitators (Accountable Talk).

This website is a great research tool with different ways to teach social studies using differentiated instruction. The website provides different general ideas and ideas that will help spark an interest in the students. FYI on the left side there is a toolbar, it provides different activities and knowledge regarding social studies once you select a specific grade.

In this journal article, Carol Arnold, a junior high school teacher shares her insights on an inquiry project she requires of her students. They investigate current natural disasters and related issues such as global warming and link them to the causal relationship between humans and their environment. This effectively allows the students to answer the questions of 'why study history' or 'why study geography' through their own research project.

In this article Jennifer Tupper argues for a new approach to teaching history; a rediscovery or re(hi)storation which not only examines the male dominated view of history, but also the influences others to critically approach historical documentation for bias and partiality. I found her text formatting and insertion of italicized documentation to be particularly relevant and persuasive. It demonstrated how we as History teachers can allow spaces for 'breaking news' that might otherwise be overlooked, so that we are not perpetuating this narrow perspective.

This journal article provides several examples of creative activities to engage students in learning about their community and government. Although this can be viewed as a rather dry topic, utilizing the ideas given in the article new TECs can pique the interests of students and give them a sense of belonging to the community in which they live.

This article is great for computer-savvy teachers or historians who are interested incorporating computer gaming into their history lessons. Bitcasters, Telefilm Canada and Canada's National History Society have joined together to make an application which can be added to the Civilization III which uses Canadian history as a bases for the gaming environment. This is a unique way to make history lessons more interesting especially for those gamers in your class. The only difficulty I see with using this in the classroom is how to incorporate it to the curriculum and limited class time allotted for history. To help keep the game tied to the curriculum, HistoriCanada includes historical references such as the Canadian Encyclopedia, which are integrated directly into the game. An added bonus for teachers is that the game allows teachers to track progress on the game's web site, which will also provide further background information on the actual course of Canadian history.