Obama's New EPA Regulation

President Obama's recent announcement that states will need to cut emissions by 30% by 2030 is a great way to study government.  To start with it will take another year to become final.  That brings up regulation and their public comment period.  Secondly the regulation comes under the auspices of the Clear Air Act.  Third, it is up to the states to come up with their own plan - federalism.  Fourth, Europe is considering a plan to cut emissions by 43% - international relations and on and on.  The video above explains it and here is an article giving more details. 

State Dept and TV in Nigeria

The video above is about Boko Haram and this article is about a US State Department financed television station in northern Nigeria set up to counter Islamic fundamentalists like Boko Haram.

On some level it seems funny to be posting right now since my seniors are all done on Monday, but like many of you I also use the search engine on this site to find things I want to use during the school year.  So when I get to Nigeria, for example, next February, I will find all the articles on Nigeria and pick a few to share with my students. 

Awesome AP Comparative PowerPoints

As a department chair, for years I have given everything, notes, projects, flipped videos, ppts, etc. to new teachers so they can just worry about learning of the content.  So if you are new to AP Comparative or want to upgrade your PowerPoints, here is a great set of them from "Mr. Caroddo" which you can download and then tailor them to work for you.  Above is one of them.  

Doctors Not So Republican Anymore

According to this article and study, the traditionally Republican stronghold, doctors, have now gone under 50% and are more supportive of Democrats.  Not surprisingly female doctors are leading the way.  

Scotland and Staying, or not, with the United Kingdom

One of the things we briefly look at in AP Comparative is whether or not Scotland should stay with Great Britain.  This article does a great job of laying out the positives (nationalism, independence is the best reason) with the negative (debt, no pound or membership in the EU).  

Controlling the Press, Part II

Here is yet another "impromptu" walk by the President from the White House to the Dept. of Interior.  It was just put up and already has two million hits.  You could discuss the "power of the pulpit" and ask your kids what message is Obama trying to convey in the video (see my previous post on this).  The person walking besides him, by the way is one of his advisors, John Podesta, who was Clinton's Chief of Staff.   The person who gave Obama the M & Ms is is "body man" who gives him his daily schedule, hand sanitizer and takes all the things he is handed during the day. 

Great Student Made Overview of Studying US Government

Every once in a while I like to look at who is following me and if I like what they have been posting on Twitter, I follow them back.  So Mary Ward is one of these people which is where I found this great student video (above) that is a great overview of what students learn in government.  Clearly the student also understands the relationships between the different learning areas.  If you want to follow me on Twitter, go here. 

Chromebooks as an Inexpensive Alternative for Schools

It is interesting to me that schools are willing to pay a great deal of money for tablets when laptops can do more.  The problem, of course, is that many see laptops as being even more expensive.  A number of teachers in my county would love to move to Chromebooks (which is taking a while for approval as we are a huge district).  But Chromebooks, as you can see in the video above are cheap ($200-350) laptops that range from 11 to 15".  They are inexpensive because they are essentially online devices.  Yes you have some space on the laptop and yes you can now work offline on Google Drive documents, but think about what you do on your laptop.  How often are you not connected to the Internet?  If we truly want our students to be prepared for the 21st century then they all need devices in school.

Chromebooks utilize the strength of Google Drive, but you can also use Microsoft's OneDrive (which recently changed names from SkyDrive).  I have been using online documents for four years and will admit that I used to download them onto my school's server, but at some point I just stopped as I realized that Google does a better job of safely backing up my work than my school district (who also does a great job).  I also want to be able to access my work anywhere (hey I love my job and work a lot of evenings and weekends) and don't want to have download VPN on every laptop and/or have to be married to one device.

So if you are interested, here is a link to purchasing Chromebooks on Amazon.  A number of schools also lease them for three years (which is essentially the life of a computer anyway).  Since it is a web based device all of the updates are down automatically and of course improvements to Google Drive or for that matter OneDrive are also automatic. 

Media, the President and that Baseball Visit

Apparently even impromptu visits such as the one the president made to the Little League baseball game this week are planned out in advance - not much in advance, but the only people who didn't know about it were the press corps as this WashPost article describes.  I can also speak from personal experience that when Michelle Obama came to my school a few years ago, we only were asked six days in advance (the idea was around much longer, but they hadn't selected a school), but from that point on the Secret Service was basically camping in the school to make sure everything was all set. 

No Summer Vacation on the Blogs

I am almost laughing thinking that some of you will actually be out of school in a week or so whereas I go until June 25th (yes indeed) and then start summer school teaching on July 1st (but I love my job so there is no complaining here!).  But please know that our blogs will be up and posting ALL SUMMER.  So if you are refining your classes or just looking for good ideas for summer school, be sure to stop by.

If you are new here there are now five blogs in the family starting with the
US History Teachers' Blog
US (and Comparative) Government Teachers' Blog
World History Teachers' Blog
World Religions (run by the great George Coe who helps on the three above as well)
Economic Teachers' Blog which is the newest member but moving quickly with 25 posts already.

You can also use the search engine in the upper left corner to search the 5000+ posts that we have put up in the last six years.

Boko Haram and Issues in AP Comparative

I believe that part of teaching AP Comparative is playing a bit of a guessing game in that there are so many issues that can be selected to be questioned.  So discussing Sharia law in the northern part of Nigeria, for example, is fair game, but I also think so is Boko Haram.  So I have taken Rebecca Small's idea of having my students research "issues" in addition to our reading and then the kids know they could pop up on a test.  So I have this e-sheet of issues and terms that the students must work into their write-ups (which I like to be about one paragraph).  Sometimes I add an article like this one from today's New York Times or even the 60 Minutes segment on Iran from last night.  That is one of the great things about using Google Drive (or Microsoft's OneDrive) as I do not need to continually upload it to Blackboard, but just change it on the document and the kids immediately can see it.  

Iran on 60 Minutes

I teach AP Comparative Government from Jan through the AP exam and in between I try to read as much as I can on the EU and the six countries that are taught in AP Comparative as I find that it reinforces what I already know and gives me fodder for some of the issues that I teach in the class. So I enjoyed seeing the piece on Iran tonight on 60 minutes (see above) as it goes into many "fair topics" on the AP exam such as the Supreme Leader, the president, the nuclear question, media control, etc.  

2014 Released AP Free Response Questions

If you follow Trevor Packer on Twitter (who is head of the AP program), he has been Tweeting out when the College Board releases the 2014 AP free response questions.  Here are the micro, macro, US government, US, world and comp questions. 

Iran and Censorship

Transparency is one thing that is covered in AP Comparative and, of course, one of the countries studied is Iran.  Well here is a short article on how some pages in Wikipedia and Google Sites (basically a platform for videos and message) have been blocked in recent days.  Since it also mentions Iran's president you could tie it into last year's election or even to the Green Revolution. 

Brown vs. Board of Education: PBS News Hour Discussion

Saturday marks the 60th anniversary of the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case. The PBS News Hour had an excellent segment tonight about how far we have come in eliminating segregation. The segment also includes excellent background about the case.