Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City
Tempest is a side-scrolling platform game set in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina Disaster of 2005. The game's main character is Vivica Water, a young woman from New Orleans who moved to New York after surviving the storm. The game takes place in a dream Vivica has where she searches for her mother and helps her neighbors as the hero she wishes she could have been. Tempest is meant to be a fun adventure game that also addresses meaningful, accurate and difficult historical situations. In
Social Media in Business, Development & Government, Spring 2009
Social media technologies are disrupting power equations between consumers and businesses on one hand and citizens and governments on the other hand, especially in the context of emerging countries. Therefore, it is essential that thinkers and practitioners in the areas of business, development and government understand the use and impact of social media technologies.
Through readings, guest lectures, and case studies, the course will provide students the conceptual understanding of the power a
General Physics I, Summer 2009
This course is the first of a two-part introductory general physics course intended for non-physics majors. Doing well in this course does not require you to be a “genius”, but you will have to think about the physical concepts in order to understand them and you will have to apply these ideas in order to solve computational problems. To accomplish the former, all you really need is your brain (in good working order) and the willingness to use it. To accomplish the latter, you will need s
General Physics II, Spring 2009
This course is the second of a two-part introductory, calculus based, general physics course intended for non-physics majors. The course is designated to train you in a wide variety of problem-solving skills that you will be able to transfer far beyond this physics course. Doing well in this course does not require you to be a “genius”, but you will have to think about the physical concepts in order to understand them and you will have to apply these ideas in order to solve computational p
Beckett, Borges, & Nabokov, Spring 2009
There are a number of goals for this course. By the end of the semester, it is my hope that you will:
* Gain comfort in reading difficult fictional narratives with a careful attention to detail, narrative technique, intertext, and context;
* Reflect on how you read literature and share these reflections with the class;
* Learn to engage in a critical dialogue with your peers and with the scholarship in the field;
* Develop research skills applicable to the study of literature;
Comprehension Activities
FreeReading is an open source instructional program that helps educators teach early literacy. Because it is open source, it represents the collective wisdom of a wide community of teachers and researchers. FreeReading contains Comprehension Activities, a page of activities to address important comprehension skills and strategies.
Writing Activities
FreeReading is an open source instructional program that helps educators teach early literacy. Because it is open source, it represents the collective wisdom of a wide community of teachers and researchers. FreeReading contains Writing Activities, a page of activities to address important writing skills and strategies.
Investigating Community Preparedness
This exercise is appropriate for high school, and some middle school students. It allows the students to look at how their community is preparing for possible disasters and then allows a simulation that demonstrate how difficult handling disasters can be. The exercise involves such skills as: planning, interviewing, writing, public speaking and analysis and problem solving.
What is Inquiry?
Good science education requires both learning scientific concepts and developing scientific thinking skills. Inquiry is an approach to learning that involves a process of exploring the natural or material world, and that leads to asking questions, making discoveries, and testing those discoveries in the search for new understanding. Inquiry, as it relates to science education, should mirror as closely as possible the enterprise of doing real science.
A Brief History of Copyright and Innovation
From the framers of the Constitution, who were worried about books and pamphlets, to present-day stakeholders, who are concerned about DVDs, MP3s, and the Internet, the story of copyright law is an ongoing struggle to balance copyright holders' rights with and the public interest. New technologies constantly challenge that balance.
In this lesson, students will examine the historical relationship between copyright law and technological innovation in the U.S. Working in teams, they will research
Teaching Copyright
As today's tech-savvy teens become increasingly involved with technology and the Internet for learning, work, civic engagement, and entertainment, it is vital to ensure that they understand their legal rights and responsibilities under copyright law and also how the law affects creativity and innovation.
This curriculum is designed to give teachers a comprehensive set of tools to educate students about copyright while incorporating activities that exercise a variety of learning skills. Lesson t
Earth Exploration Toolbook Chapter: Investigating Earthquakes: GIS Mapping and Analysis
This activity describes the technique of preparing latitude-longitude based data so it can be imported into a geographic information system (GIS). The chapter describes the steps to create a map to display data and guides users through some basic geographic analyses. The focus of the chapter's case study is earthquake prediction. Users download and format near real-time and historical earthquake data from the USGS. They import the data into ArcVoyager Special Edition GIS software, and analyze pa
The Geologic Time Scale
This resource presents a table of the Geologic Time Scale. The time scale begins with a brief description of the Precambrian Era, and proceeds through the Cambrian Period starting 544 million years ago and concluding with the Holocene Epoch of today. The time periods are explained and include the dates, scientific names, historical descriptions, and common names. The table is organized by Era, Period or System, and Epoch or Series.
Correlates of Desistance
There is no question that life in America has changed drastically in the past fifty years. Given the importance of examining historical change inherent in the life course perspective, it is important to determine how changes in the social structure over time impact individuals. Therefore, the goals of this data analysis exercise are to examine changes in marriage and employment over the last fifty years. The purposes are to identify the changes that have taken place, and to hypothesize how these
Community Organizing Toolkit Game
The Toolkit is a set of resources that supports face-to-face training for residents and community leaders. The computer-based component (the "Organizing Game") is used to introduce concepts, prompt discussion, and allow residents to practice skills in a safe, non-threatening environment. The initial focus of the Toolkit is teaching Doorknocking, an organizing technique that's particularly effective in moving issues within a local community.
American Egyptomania
This website is devoted to exploring American fascination with Egypt and its history. Primary Source documents can be found by browsing the Historical Sources page or by searching through the advanced search page. Secondary literature that addresses topics such as art & architecture, history, literature, religion, and science can be browsed through the scholarship page. The web resources page contains a list of helpful websites related to the topics of the site and the search page is an advanced
Historical Thinking Matters
For too many Americans, the history class in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (remember the teacher’s plaintive question, “anyone, anyone?”) is all too familiar. Our approach is meant to challenge this false and familiar image of history: understanding and reconstructing the past requires ways of thinking, reading, and questioning much more engaging and challenging than mere memorization.
Teaching in a way that differs from your own schooling experience is not necessarily easy to imagine, let a
Object of History
The Object of History is a cooperative project between the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media. The project was conceived of in an effort to find a low cost way for students and teacher of U.S. History to have access to the museum’s collections and the expertise of the curators. As a result the materials on the site are designed to improve students’ content knowledge of standard topics in U.S. History and to imp
World History Survey Course on the Web
World History teachers face many challenges to incorporating primary sources in their teaching—the pressures of coverage in survey courses, the lack of available materials, and inadequate training in dealing with unfamiliar sources from a range of cultures. World History Sources responds to these challenges (as well as the new opportunities offered by the Internet) by creating a website to help world history teachers and students locate, analyze, and learn from online primary sources and to fu
Women in World History
Women in World History is an online curriculum resource center designed to help high school and college world history teachers and students find and analyze online primary sources on women in world history. Materials encourage teachers to integrate recent scholarship and give students a more sophisticated framework for understanding global women’s history. Women in World History reflects three approaches central to current scholarship in world history and the history of women: an emphasis on
