Empire (British and Others)

Last week and this week, we've been studying exploration and colonization.  Today, the students completed a map of the British Empire.  Check it out:

...It was pretty vast.

The 7th grade social studies department teaches several reasons for European exploration and colonization during the so-called "Age of Exploration" or "Age of Discovery."

What I teach as the biggest and most important reasons are LAND, and NATURAL RESOURCES.

It's true, there were many other reasons - noble reasons - for exploring the world.  (Gaining knowledge, for one...)  But the main reasons Europe explored (and colonized) was for land and natural resources.

I'm not really in to casting stones, but let me point out one other thing: The British Empire helped pave the way for others with Imperialistic aims.

England lost moral credibility against Germany in World War II because of its history of imperialism.  I believe it's becoming clearer and clearer that they were both evil.

If you want extra credit for reading and discussing the blog, you are supposed to read and discuss it with an adult.  Discuss the British Empire: how much land they had, whether you believe it was okay for them to colonize the world - why or why not, etc... To prove that you were here, click on the link above, "Age of Discovery" and TKWA any map from that page.  Have the adult you read and discussed the blog with sign the paper when you are done.

Make sure your name, date, and hour are on it, and turn it in tomorrow.

EXTRA:  Here's a video many classes watched today:

Stations! Stations, Everyone!

Ancient Civilization Quiz grades will be entered soon.  If students weren't here on Friday, they should make up the quiz on Wednesday.

Today and tomorrow we're working on stations.

In past years, I haven't done as good of a job as I've wanted reviewing throughout the year.  That changed today.  Around the room, I made 7 stations.  Students had a little over 10 minutes to complete each one.

Almost all of them focused on something we had studied earlier in the year.

Here's a picture from each

Station 1:  Globalization, Industrialization, Urbanization

Review and Google Docs... Reviewgle Docs... Heh...

Alright... that title needs a little work.  It's been a long day in the classroom.  I'm still trying to figure out how google docs will work for me.  For us.  For everyone.  (Kudos to those of you out there that already have all this down!)

We've got the ISTEP coming up, so I thought it best to review a little bit while also figuring out this technology piece.  Fellow Hoosier and all around awesome person Mr. John Green (et al) helped us out with that today:

After 11 minutes of historical brain candy, students had to work together on their google docs answering questions from both the film and the school year as a whole.  Some of the questions were factual recall.  Some asked for discussion...  If you want to know what I asked, here it is:  RIGHT HERE.  (I capitalized that in case you got lost.)

Here's some stuff the youtube video addressed (directly or indirectly) that may show up on the final:

• ancient civilizations
• water 
• drinking
• agriculture
• sanitation
• standard of living
• code of laws
• natural resources
• theocracy
• Hamurabi
• system of writing
• human capital
• empire
• religion
• culture
• architecture
• Great Bath
• Asia 
• South America
• ...Yeah...  that's already a lot, and I haven't had to stop and think yet...

Students, you can access your own files from home if you have a computer and the internet.  Or maybe a phone.  I haven't tried google drive on my phone yet.  I should.

In case you've forgotten your new email address, it's firstnamelastname@stu.concord.k12.in.us.  Go ahead and send Firstname Lastname some letters.  He really wishes he'd been named differently.  Don't forget the s when you type in your password.

If you came to my blog for the extra credit, you were supposed to read and discuss it with an adult.  If you did that, write down a couple sentences from your discussion.  Tell me what you talked about.  Hopefully you told them how google docs went today.  (It was much better from my vantage point.  Students were working in smaller groups instead of the whole class working on the same document together.)  Have the adult sign the paper.  Make sure your name, date, and hour are on it.  Turn it in tomorrow.

You might take the time to show them your group's google doc.  You could even change it a little bit to show them how it works, if they're not familiar with the technology.  ...I get that most of you probably have your own google account...

Also, if you want to change your profile picture, go for it.