Day Two

6-6-17
Today started with more rain. Dr. Sherman-Morris taught us the 5 themes of geography. We got inflatable globes (which we also used later). The topics of absolute geographic location is interesting to me, especially how latitude and longitude were established and standardized.  I found out through questioning and further research that longitude was not standardized until the 1600's when an accurate clock was made.  We say how a protractor can be inserted into a sphere (remove a chunk) to show how the degree marks are established for both 'meridians' of longitude and 'parallels' of latitude. I really thought about Columbus and how much was unknown. His estimation of the circumference of the globe was so far off because of wrongly estimating the distance between the meridians. Erastonfanes (spelling is all Greek to me) had a much closer estimate of the size of the earth - within 500 miles.
We went to the library to (re) learn Excel. It was a good refresher. I need to use charts more. I practiced in the after-lunch session:  Class Investigation. We made a hypothesis and collected data from our class. My hypothesis was wrong and the results had no great revelations. "Where were you  born? How many years have you lived in this area?" I should have chosen a topic which might reveal interesting & diverse data with trends.
 I expect to use Excel and its charts to compare various Spanish and French-speaking countries. I can have the students share large numbers (population, land area) aloud in the target language while others take notes. I have done this before and followed it with an open-notes assessment comparing data from the various countries. If I do this in the future, I think I may let groups compare (or even evaluate) their numbers prior to the test so the data is correct. We can also use the inflatable globe to locate these places in the world.
Michael Murphy, PhD. candidate here,  came to share a presentation about Civil Rights and lesser known facts. I took notes because I'm weak in this area of history. I have some trouble connecting this to my subject area but there is a definite connection to the culture of this area. There is an interesting online collection 'Starkvillecivilrights" which includes interviews with African Americans about their experiences in the Civil Rights movement.
We did a quick lesson on editorial cartoon analysis. I think I understand the references in most cartoons well enough to explain how the cartoon comments on topics. However, I didn't select the correct literary cartoon in the activity from the Library of Congress.
Well, more fun tomorrow!