Remember the Westward Webquest, when you had to identify the lines on a US map with verbal and visual clues?

See below for a chance for up to eleven bonus points.  This is due no later than Friday, May 21.

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Here is the link to Slate’s article that spells out the scenarios of ending America.  It’s a good launching point for choosing your topic of study.

Also, here’s a powerful slideshow that shows how nature reclaims man-made structures, as well as another that explores the “beautiful ruins of Detroit“.

Have fun, but don’t forget: this research project is to be based in geographically-based research methodology.  How do people and the places they inhabit rely on each other?

Don’t just tell me what would happen — tell me why it would happen.

Begin the simulation

Choose your own path westward as you try to find the mother lode and retire a millionaire.

Play the game at least five times to reach different outcomes, opt for each method of travel, and find a way to make a living in California.

The simulation should take you 50-60 minutes. Read the entire page. Don’t just scroll and click, or you won’t find the million.

Africa Map Packet (PDF, 300 kb)

This 24-point map packet includes three blank Africa maps.  Label each as a political, physical, and resource map.

This assignment included a four-page packet and four stations around the room.

Each station is recreated virtually below.

Oregon Trail packet (PDF, 196 kb)

Station 1:  Interactive website  |  historyglobe.com (link)

Station 2:  Reading  |  Children of the Oregon Trail (PDF, 96 kb)

Station 3:  Video  |  Western Movement and the Oregon Trail

Station 4:  Artistic interpretation  |  Albert Bierstadt paintings (PDF, 212 kb)

For this week’s study, you and a partner will research one pressing topic in today’s news.

Research the topic, then answer the five questions every reporter is taught to answer on the first day of Journalism 101:

1. What happened?
2. Who was involved?
3. Where did it happen?
4. When did it happen?
5. Why did it happen?

Then record your answers to the following questions:

• Why is this important?  How will it affect everyday Americans?
• How does this fit into the historical continuum?
• What are three questions that you have about this current issue that your research did not answer?
• What happens now?

Finally, you will add to your analysis at least one political cartoon (that you found, or drew yourselves), and at least one embedded video clip of a report or editorial opinion on your topic.

You will then lead a class discussion on your topic the week of Monday, May 17.

Group assignments:

Aces: Failed bomb attack (and subsequent scares) in New York City

Twos: BP oil spill in Gulf of Mexico

Threes: Crazy week on Wall Street: Wha’hoppen?

Fours: Greek economic collapse, riots, possible bailout

Fives: Obama reveals we have precisely 5,113 nuclear warheads.  Huh?

Sixes: Tea Party activists push the Republican Party further right

Sevens: Arizona’s immigration crackdown

Eights: The rise of the iPad, and the death of the laptop?

Nines: SCOTUS vacancy: Who will be Obama’s pick?

Tens: Pennsylvania primaries — your first chance to vote?

Mormon Trail: In search of the promised land (PDF, 104 kb)

Read each paragraph, and present it in a different way. Make meaning out of what you are reading by rewriting it in your own words or drawing a comic strip.

Readings:
Tecumseh’s Call to Arms (PDF, 12 MB)
1830: State of the Union (PDF, 11 KB)
Trail of Tears (PDF, 1 MB)

Worksheets (PDF, 25 KB)

If you’re making up this assignment, you may choose between the Tecumseh and State of the Union articles. You’ll need to download both the reading and the worksheet.