Service Learning Project

** Leslie was lucky enough to get a picture with her district sign!! **

As a group we decided that voting would be a good idea to help in making a change in our world by choosing the governor that had the best stance on the environment. Each of us researched the candidates and voted in our hometowns. We did it because with the Governor of Massachusetts being elected this person is someone that would be making changes in the state we live in, directly affecting us.

Leslie Veiga
Service Learning Project

Voting on Tuesday allowed me to voice my opinion on what I felt was the better candidate in terms of their environmental standpoint. The impact that this has on the greater good is because the person that we voted in as Governor is the one who makes decisions directly affecting the state we live in. I personally voted for Deval Patrick because he has already made a lot of changes to help our environment and also had further proposed plans therefore I felt that he would be a good promising choice. 

Leslies Reflection:

Yes I would do something like this again, because I feel that voicing my opinion is the only way to make change possible, therefore I will continue to vote in future elections. If I was to teach the upper grades like 4th and up I surely would implant a service learning project at some point throughout the curriculum. I believe that a service learning project allows for children to really dive into a topic about the world that affects us by researching it and then providing helping hands in the cause they choose. Most often these are projects that children learn more from because they directly chose the topic and participated in a project.

Kristen Douglas

Service Learning Project

When it came time for our group to decide on a service learning project we were stuck on what to do, we decided to vote.  I have been able to vote for over 7 years now and I have not voted once.  I found that after we decided to vote I became very interested in what the candidates offered.  One of the main things that I concentrated on was their opinion on the environment.  After weighing out all the candidates had to offer I voted for Charlie Baker.  This was very eye opening for me.  It made me realize that even though my vote may not decide who wins an election but it makes a difference.  One thing Charlie Baker stated was that one concern was the future in regards to the environment.  

Kristen's Reflection:

After doing research and actually getting myself to vote this is something I will be doing in the future.  It made me feel good to know more about what is going on in politics.  I think that informing students early on about the benefits of voting will be helpful for the future.  Students need to be informed before they can vote.  One of the main reasons I never voted before was because I didn't know that much about politics.  It was a very rewarding experience to be able to confidently state that I voted and had reasons to back up why I voted the way I did. 

Sarah Ward

Service Learning Project

For my service learning project for global warming I picked to vote. I picked this because it was around the election time and I thought is would be great to support someone who agrees with global warming. The way I went about it was I went on the internet and looked up each of the candidates. I looked up what they thought about global warming and also what other sites said about them saying things about it. It was all really good information, but I had to learn that not every site will give you good info. I chose to vote for Charlie Baker. I voted for him because even though he doesn't say he is for it or against it, he is still very worried about the lasting impact it will have on the world. In some of the articles when people ask him what he thinks about it, he say he doesn't really know. That maybe true because other people that are closer to the subject might be able to help him understand. 

Sara's Reflection:

I think this was a great experience and I learned so much about different peoples view points on what is global warming and what we should do about it.

http://www.masspirg.org 

http://www.grist.org 

http://www.uspoliticsonline.com/environmental-issues/ 

Critical Attributes Strategy

1.  What is critical attributes strategy?

             

The critical attributes strategy is a strategy that concentrates on spreading procedural knowledge.  It defines the most important concepts and ideas of a specific topic.  These concepts and ideas are what help people become effective citizens.

2.  Develop a critical attirbutes list of the concepts in your current event topic.  List content, definitions, examples.  What are some non critical attributes?

Content

·         Global Warming Effects and Solution

Definitions

Atmosphere: The mixture of gases surrounding the Earth. The Earth's atmosphere consists of about 79.1% nitrogen, 20.9% oxygen, 0.036% carbon dioxide and trace amounts of other gases. The atmosphere can be divided into a number of layers according to its mixing or chemical characteristics, generally determined by temperature.

Climate: The average weather a particular region and time period.

Ecosystem: The complex of a community of organisms and the community's environment functioning as an ecological unit.

Environment: The complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors (such as climate, soil, and living things) that act upon an organism (a living thing) or an ecological community (a collection of living things) and ultimately determine its form and survival.

Greenhouse Effect: The effect produced as greenhouse gases allow incoming solar radiation to pass through the Earth's atmosphere, but prevent most of the outgoing infrared radiation from the surface and lower atmosphere from escaping into outer space. This process occurs naturally and has kept the Earth's temperature about 60 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it would otherwise be. Current life on Earth could not be sustained without the natural greenhouse effect.

Greenhouse Gas: Any gas that absorbs infra-red radiation in the atmosphere.

Critical Attribute Examples

·         About 20% of CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere comes from the gasoline burned in motor vehicle engines. The vast majority of emitted CO₂ is a result of fossil fuel burning in power plants for electricity generation.

·         Roughly 75% of the annual increase in atmospheric CO₂ is due solely to the burning of fossil fuels

·         Cars amount to three-quarters of all transportation emissions. At the current rate, the world will be driven on by more than a billion cars in 2030 and a billion more by 2050.

·         The United States represents less than 5% of the world’s population, yet Americans account for 25% of the world’s commercial energy consumption and 22% of the world’s industrial emissions of CO₂

Non Critical Attributes

·         Solving global warming will devastate our economy.

·         Measurements from satellites show that the earth is not warming.

3.  What is your level of passion in this topic and/or your detached objectivity?

This is something that we as a group feel is affecting our community.  It is something that has caught our interest and we are intrigued to learn more.  Our passion for Global Warming is slowing increasing as we learn more facts.

4.  Do you think a level of passion gets you more fired up to want to learn it? 

I think the level of passion does indeed get us more fired up to learn more about Global Warming.  In my experience, you need to have a desire to truly learn more about a topic fully. 


5.  How can you avoid a discussion in your classroom from becoming a debate

When having a discussion on Global Warming, it can become controversial.  It needs to be stated from the beginning that there are different opinions to every topic and everyone is entitled to their opinion.  The facts need to be presented in a mature manner with questions or opinions offered without negative feelings in return.

6.  Take the four challenges, and develop four questions you would ask to facilitate a discussion in our class on Tuesday on your topic.

1.      What is the evidence that temperature and carbon dioxide concentrations are correlated?

2.      What is the evidence that the use of fossil fuels, which produce carbon dioxide, is causing climate change?

3.      What are some the consequences or impacts to the environment and human society caused by Global Warming?

4.      How often do you think about the environment? Is it enough? Why/not?

  

http://facts.randomhistory.com/2009/01/29_global-warming.html

http://www.teachervision.fen.com/global-warming/resource/44475.html
http://www.repamerica.org/news/GEvol5/ge5.1_globalwarming.html

What we wish wasn't happening

What is Global Warming?

We decided to talk about this because even though global warming is something we may hear a lot about some may not know what it is. Therefore, we felt that this question was one that needed to be addressed before answering any others. Just like they say you have to build the ground work before you can move on.

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere. This consists of both the air and the ocean temperatures, which have been changing since the mid-20th century. These changes are projected to continue unless measures are taken to help stop it. Currently "global surface temperature increased 0.74 +- 0.18 C (1.33 +- 0.32 F) during the 20th century" (Wikipedia). This increase in temperature will cause all sorts of changes. Sea levels will rise, the amount and pattern of precipitation, therefore probably adding to the number of deserts. The warming will continue the retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice. Also the weather, the animals, and agricultural will see changes. However these changes may vary from one location to another. The number of areas that global warming is and will affect is numerous because global warming concerns our world.

After having researched this question the information that i was learning along the way really was eye opening. we feel like most of it was information we knew about, but it is still shocking to see every time. The information that we found out hasn't made us change our mind on how we feel about global warming. We still believe it is a very important topic because it deals with the most important thing our world.

Citation in the post:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Warming

Global Warming Introductions

This blog is a group project done by three block students at Salem State University in the Social Studies Course. Here is a little bit about each member of the group:

Hi!  My name is Kristen Douglas and I am a senior at Salem State University.  I am majoring in Elementary Education with a concentration in English.  I chose global warming as a topic because it is something that is ongoing in our enviornment.  It is brought up all over the place and I really do not know that much about it.  I am looking forward to doing some research and sharing with you what we find.


My name is Leslie Veiga, and I am a senior currently finishing up my bachelors degree. In terms of the topic i choose I have always took interest in the environment which is why i felt global warming was a good fit. I feel that theirs a lot about the topic i do not know and a lot i want to learn. Therefore I am ready to see what this topic will teach me.


Hi I'm Sara Ward. I am from California but moved to Boston about 7 years ago. I am a college student and a nanny, so that keeps me really busy. Over the last few years I have heard a lot about Global warming and it's effects on our earth. I have heard that some people believe that it's happening and others don't really think it's that bad. I'm somewhere in the middle that I need to learn and explore what Global warming is and what's it's effects. I have seen some big changes in the weather this past year that makes me wonder even more about all this talk about global warming.


Some of the things we are going to look at is what are the causes of global warming, what effects is it having on the earth and different way that we as individuals can help prevent global warming from getting worse.

Here are some weblinks for teaching global warmings in Social Studies:
www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/.../globalwarming1.htm
www.pbs.org/now/classroom/globalwarming.html 
www.cln.org/themes/global_warming.html 
www.teachervision.fen.com/earth-day/teacher.../6612.html