Going Green = Green $$$$

Check the status of your 'Green' investments here.

Who will earn the most green by the end of the week?

Carbon Counter

While our world leaders meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to discuss the fate of our world and the perceived dangers of global warming, how many metric tons of carbon have we released into the world's atmosphere today?

Click here to find out.

The New Way Forward

1)What is your initial reaction to the President's Speech?

2)Do you agree with his plan or disagree? Why?

3) Where was this speech delivered? Would your opinion be different if you were one of the Cadets in the audience? How do you think they feel?

4) What are some of the key points of the Presidents plan? What are the challenges? Do you think this plan will be successful? Why or why not?

The Great Global Warming Swindle

The Ice is Melting, the Hurricanes are blowing. and it is all YOUR FAULT! SCARED?! Don't Be, according to this professor, and others like him, its just not true.

The Green House Effect

According to the top chart how much warmer are we than 100 years ago?

If you had a 'can o' greenhouse gas' what would it be mostly filled with?

Debating America's Pastime

Were you watching?

Last night’s game six of the World Series where the Yankees went on to capture their 27th world championship was seen by an average of 22.3 million viewers and had a 7.4 rating with adults 18-49. It was up by more than 40 percent from last year’s record lows.

But how does that compare to this years Superbowl?

Is Baseball still Americas pastime?

Baseball Cards....Quantifying Success

quan·ti·fy

1: to determine, express, or measure the quantity of
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): quan·ti·fied; quan·ti·fy·ing
Etymology: Medieval Latin quantificare, from Latin quantus how much
Date: circa 1840

What statistics do Baseball Cards use to 'quantify' a player's success? How do we quantify success in other sports?

There has been much discussion regarding President Obama's winning the Nobel Peace Prize in recent weeks and whether or not he deserves it. Can we quantify his success? What data should we use?



Using the newspapers and magazines in class pick one person from the news and create a trading card for them. Your card should contain both biographical information and 'quantifying' data.

Rebranding America

What does America mean to you? Many have spoken about the need for a rebranding of America. Rebrand, restart, reboot. Click here to find out what U2's Bono thinks. In one sentence, how would you describe Bono’s vision of (the United States of) America or what he believes America is? Briefly make note of the section(s) that support your understanding of his vision or belief. Do you agree or disagree with his vision? Why?

Muslims in America

There is perhaps no arguing with a terrorist but when Osama Bin Ladin declares Jihad on the United States he has forgotten that the US is home to an estimated 3 to 7 million followers of the Quran. How many of these famous Muslim Americans can you name?

(Hint: they're not all Muslim and they're not all American.)

Click here for the answers.

Hunting Bin Ladin

Investigating Osama Bin Ladin, Al Qaeda, and their role in terrorist attacks on America.

Balloon Boy

CLICK HERE TO PLAY
The media frenzy surrounding the 'Balloon Boy' certainly wasn't a game. Thousands of dollars and man-hours were lost while our dedicated public safety agencies were sent on a wild goose chase for what has now been revealed as a publicity stunt. Who was to blame? Are we any worse for tuning in than the father who perpetrated it? Over 6,000 web sites have been launched over night with everything from fan clubs to Halloween Costumes. Should the family be allowed to profit? Should the kids be taken away? What should the punishment be?
In the sky....Its a bird...Its a plane....

Exterminate Terrorism

Afghan education authorities say they are facing a difficult task of convincing parents to send their daughters to school as attacks on female students have increased in recent months.

Meanwhile back in the US it is revealed that the Bush Administration approved the use of 'insect boxes' to interrogate suspected terrorists.

How is fear used in both instances? Is this use of fear to get terroists to confess justified? How is this different from the terrorist attacks? Can you justify the use of fear in one case but not the other? Why or why not?

Obsessed

We may have laughed at some of the phobias we studied in class but for those who suffer from them these fears are no laughing matter.

Marie, for example, has an obsession with the weight of objects and fears that her kitchen appliances are going to fall from the floor.

Be Afraid....

Be very afraid! October marks the month that we as a nation celebrate 'being afraid.' But what do we really have to be afraid about? Read the article from last week's Time magazine on Glenn Beck and then you tell me.

1) Who is Glenn Beck and how did he get his start?

2) What does Mr. Beck tell us to be afraid of? List at least 3 specific fears.

3) Is Glenn Beck the first to play on American's fears? Look at the chart entitled 'Paranoid Politics' and name at least 2 others?

4) What does 'E pluribus unum'mean? Is it true? How do we as Americans stereotype each other politically?

5) Like Micheal Moore, how does Glenn Beck make his money?

Click here to listen to Glenn Beck's response.

'Obama' Care

We can all agree that the health care crisis in America is a topic that everyone seems to have an opinion on. Listen to what the President is proposing to fix our Nation's health care crisis and then look at the arguments against his plan. How would you vote?

Sicko

Having watched the movie Sicko in class you may be saying to yourself, "Self, how much of this movie can I believe and how much of this movie is part of Michael Moore's Liberal agenda?" Remember that Mr. Moore is, after all, a movie maker and in the business of telling a good story. In an effort to be fair and unbalanced you can check the facts for yourself and make up your own mind.

Faces of the Health Care Crisis

Click here for full report.

After watching this report why should you care about Health Care?

1918 Flu

A virus that killed up to 50 million people is brought back to life to decipher its deadliness.

Do the benefits out-weigh the obvious of risks? You decide.

Swine Flu

Video
Swine influenza is flu virus usually found in pigs. The virus occasionally changes (mutates) and becomes infectious in humans. When this happens, the disease becomes a concern to humans, who have little or no immunity against it. This means the virus has the potential to spread quickly around the world. It also may be more difficult to treat than the usual, seasonal human flu viruses.

Symptoms of H1N1 flu infection in humans are similar to classic flu-like symptoms, which might include

Fever above 100.4 °F
Cough
Sore throat
Headache
Chills
Muscle aches
Diarrhea
Vomiting

Roll Up YOUR Sleeve?

Would you volunteer for the trial Swine Flu vaccine? Why or why not?

Maybe this report will change your mind.

Click here to see the Governments powerful new weapon to fight the Swine Flu.

Have We Lost Our Manners?

What do you think of the recent outburst by U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, who yelled "You lie" at the president during his address to Congress last week? Or Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift while she was accepting an award at the MTV Video Music Awards Sunday night? Or Serena Williams' outburst at the U.S. Open? Or town hall meeting attendees protesting health care reform?

Have we lost our manners? Do you think any of these outbursts were staged? What should they do to apologize?

Maybe Jay Leno has the answer.

What the Public Thinks of Public Schools

by Paul Peterson Wall Street Journal

Yesterday President Barack Obama delivered a pep talk to America's schoolchildren. The president owes a separate speech to America's parents. They deserve some straight talk on the state of our public schools.

High-school graduation rates are lower today than in 1970.

According to the just released Education Next poll put out by the Hoover Institution, public assessment of schools has fallen to the lowest level recorded since Americans were first asked to grade schools in 1981. Just 18% of those surveyed gave schools a grade of an A or a B, down from 30% reported by a Gallup poll as recently as 2005.

No less than 25% of those polled by Education Next gave the schools either an F or a D. (In 2005, only 20% gave schools such low marks.)

Beginning in 2002, the grades awarded to schools by the public spurted upward from the doldrums into which they had fallen during the 1990s. Apparently the enactment of No Child Left Behind gave people a sense that schools were improving. But those days are gone. That federal law has lost its luster and nothing else has taken its place.

It's little wonder the public is becoming uneasy. High-school graduation rates are lower today than they were in 1970. The math and reading scores of 17-year-olds have been stagnant for four decades.

You cannot fool all the people all the time, President Lincoln said. And when it comes to student learning, the public seems beyond deceit. When asked how many ninth graders graduate from high school in four years, the public estimated that only 66% of students graduated on time—slightly less than the best available scholarly estimates.

When asked how American 15-year-olds compare in math with students in 29 other industrialized nations, the public did not fool itself into believing that the U.S. is among the top five countries in the world. Those polled ranked the U.S. at No. 17, just a bit higher than the No. 24 spot the country actually holds.

In another sign of declining confidence, the public is less willing to spend more money on public education. In 1990, 70% of taxpayers favored spending "more on education," according to a University of Chicago poll. In the latest poll, only 46% favored a spending increase. That's a 15 percentage point drop from just one year ago when it was 61%.

But when it comes to actual dollars spent per pupil, Americans get the numbers wrong. Those polled by Education Next estimated that schools in their own districts spend a little more than $4,000 per pupil, on average. In fact, schools in those districts spend an average of $10,000.

One can understand the public's confusion on the dollar and cents question. Schools' money pots are filled with revenue from property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, gambling revenues, and dozens of other sources. It's not easy to add up all the numbers, and no one does it for the voter except the federal government, which manages to get the information out two years late. When those surveyed are told how much is actually being spent in their own school district, only 38% say they support higher spending.

The public also dramatically underestimates the amount teachers in their state are being paid. The average guess in 2007 was around $33,000—well below actual average salary of $47,000 across all states. When told the truth about teacher salaries, support for the idea that they should get a salary increase plummeted by 14 percentage points.

A presidential truth-in-spending address is definitely in order. Over $100 billion of the stimulus package went to K-12 education, doubling the federal contribution to school spending. A powerful public-school lobby will fight fiercely to keep federal aid to education at these historic highs. President Obama could head off such deficit-driving pressures by sharing accurate information about how much students learn, how much schools spend, and how much teachers are paid.


If you were designing your own school what would it be like? What would be taught? What special classes would there be? What would an average day be like? Who would your teachers be? How would technology be used? What would the building and campus look like? Be creative but don't forget to include how you would pay for it all.

Want some ideas? Check out these COOL SCHOOLS.

President's School Speech

Full Screen
Today President Obama will speak directly to students all across the nation about the importance of education. The problem is many students and parents won't be listening. Should you be required to hear the Presidents message at school? We've talked in class about our American right to freedom of speech but do you have freedom not to listen? What is all the fuss really about? After taking a look at the text of the speech what do you think the Presidents goal is? Is he trying to 'brainwash' you as some critics suggest?

For more on this debate click here.

Were you paying attention?!

How much do you remember about this week's Headlines? Take this weekly quiz to find out!

All the News Thats Fit to Print

The New York Times and Washington Post have become the latest newspapers to announce plans to downsize their staffs. As papers across the country continue to fold or downsize, policy officials and experts are contemplating a series of proposals to help newspapers stay afloat. On Capitol Hill, Democratic Senator Benjamin Cardin of Maryland has introduced the Newspaper Revitalization Act. Should the US Government step in and save the Nation's newspapers as they have with the auto industry and the bank bail-outs? Why or why not?

The Eagle Has Landed

It was 40 years ago this summer that the US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first men to walk on the moon. Millions of people world wide were tuned into their televisions to watch this single event. Some critics still claim that the whole thing was a hoax. Why is the moon landing still inspiring and controversial even today? Compare the moon landing to the other events hanging on our classroom wall. What do they all have in common? What events today are as important?

The First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

We begin our study of Current Affairs by looking at what exactly is 'news' and the rights and responsibilities of the press. Our founding fathers realized the importance of a free press to our democracy; so much so they put it in the first amendment. Why do you think free press is this important?

Just Sayin'....

Click here to watch this video.

No longer is the Daily Newspaper the most relevant source of news. We live in an age of information where we are bombarded with news 24 hours a day from cable television, to Youtube, to Twitter. What exactly is 'news?' Where do you get your news from? How has technology affected the press and its freedom?

Take a look at these HEADLINES and then decide whether they are news worthy. Is this what the founders had in mind when they wrote the first amendment?' What responsibilities does the 'media' have?