Food Shortage Articles

Food Shortage Articles

1. Food shortages loom as wheat crop shrinks and prices rise
2. 40 countries face food shortages worldwide
3. Experts: Global Food Shortages Could ‘Continue for Decades'
4. Food shortages: how will we feed the world?

Read one of the articles. Post a response on your blog. Remember your post (response) should include:

• The title of the article.
• What it says.
• What it relates to.
• What you think.
• Extra: Provide a link to the article in your post.

Comment on someone else's post please.

Secret Master Plan

Alright bloggers you've been doing some really good work. You've learned to post and also found many useful articles about your topics. I am surprised by how many of you are surprised to be learning some pretty basic facts about your topics. This encourages me that you're learning some things you really should know.

It's time for me to reveal my secret master plan. I asked your group to select the five best articles about your topic. I will make those articles available to the whole class. What this means to you is that everyone in the class will have read about the basic information on your topic. Everyone will soon know as much as you do now about your topic. This means you must run faster, stretch out your arms farther and ... LEARN MORE. (Anyone get the reference?)

Your group will make a presentation to the class about your topic. Your presentation must go far beyond the basics. Many of you have large groups. I suggest you break yourselves up into smaller sub-groups and have each sub-group focus on a different aspect of your topic. For example, the group studying food shortages could have some members focusing on causes, and others on effects. The group studying climate change could divide into geographic areas and focus specifically on the way the climate is changing in that part of the world.

Think about how you want to divide yourselves, think about how each person's work will contribute to the whole. Use your blog to assign jobs, post progress, and link to useful information. I am grading your final presentation, but I am also evaluating the contributions you make on your blog. The blog is a good place to write intelligently about your topic.

Today (Wednesday)
1. Sign on to your groups' blog and post a comment about someone else's post from yesterday. Look for the place at the end of their post that says " Posted by Display name at 1:03 PM 0 comments" Click where it says comments and write what you want to say about their post.
2. Then use the links on my blog to visit the blog of another interest group. Post a comment there too.
3. Read several of the articles linked below. They are all about climate change. ON YOUR GROUP's BLOG post your response to the article. Make sure you include the title of the article, a brief description of it and your thoughts. Remember not everyone in your group is reading the same articles so you need to explain what you read about in your post.

1. Life feels the effects of a changing climate

2. State of Knowledge

3. Climate change: A guide for the perplexed

4. Climate Change Has Major Impact On Oceans

The To Do List:

Captain-

• Make sure everyone understands their tasks.
• Make sure your group selects the five best articles.
• Make sure everyone joins the blog and posts.
• Watch the time. Group members should start their blog posts 15 minutes before the end of the period.

Secretary-

• Make sure list of e-mail addresses is up to date (have you added any new group members?) and formatted correctly.
• Format list of articles for easy use.
• Encourage group members to prioritize articles. We need the best five.

Technologist-

• Make sure all group members are invited to join your blog.
• Invite jrobertsplhs@gmail.com to join your blog.
• Give administrative privileges to your captain and Mrs. R.
• Make sure blog URL is pasted at the top of your list of articles.
• Help group members respond to invitations to join blog.
• If you have time create a linked list on the blog with links to your top five articles.

Group members-

• Respond to invitation to join your group blog. (check your e-mail)
• Chose a display name that is close to your real name.
• Review articles you found on Friday.
• Find more articles, summarize them. (If necessary)
• Decide which five are the best for helping to understand your topic.
• Write a post to your blog about what you did today and what you learned.

Interest Groups

Today you will find out which interest group you are in.
Your group needs to select a captain, a secretary and a technologist.

Captain- Coordinates group activities. You need to know what everyone is working on. You will lead group meetings and follow up on action items. When someone is absent you are responsible for make sure they know what they missed.

Secretary - Responsible for group communications. You will collect the e-mail addresses from your group and enter them into a Google doc. You will share that document with everyone in your group. When your group needs a doc created and shared you will handle that.

Technologist - Responsible for the groups' technical needs. You will teach your group the technology skills they need for this project. You will start the group blog and add your group members as authors. Blog Requirements

After you have selected these people you should start hunting for articles about your topic. By the end of today your group secretary needs to send me a list of five articles. Each article needs to include a link and a brief summary of the article. (Hint: Find more than five articles and pick the best five.) (Hint 2: have each person in your group search with slightly different search words to find a variety of articles.)

Does School Kill Creativity?

Today we are watching Sir Ken Robinson. As we watch his talk please respond in your readers journal (in google docs) to these three questions.

1. What is his main point?
2. What questions does he ask?
3. What questions come to your mind?
4. Is he right?
   

Do not click this link in class. We will watch him together on the big screen. If you were not in class please use this link to watch what you missed.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66 < Sir Ken Robinson

Gatsby Project

Click here >> Gatsby Project << for your Gatsby Project options.